


Splintered

by Lachanophobic



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: 3 year gap, Action/Adventure, Alternate POVs, Androids, Angst, Break Up, Camaraderie, Cell Games Saga, Character Analysis, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Cell Games Saga, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trust, manga take, sue me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 00:57:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lachanophobic/pseuds/Lachanophobic
Summary: Bulma has been repeating a mantra in her head since that infamous day: people shouldn't know about their future, it messes things up like a menstrual cycle.There's a path to choose:One leads to safety. The other leads to trouble. Either choice will be a leap into a void that seems impossible to blaze.





	1. Cold Serpent

**Author's Note:**

> I have been planning this fic for too long so I felt the need to finally start it. Chapters will be short in the beginning because it's part of the plan (insert evil stepmother's laugh here.) Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   


Freedom _ can _ be bought selling your life: book I of his autobiography. Vegetasei smelled foul. Foul like burnt flesh, foul like waterless ponds and unwashed bodies. In his coronation day that reeking planet exploded, leaving no strange stench behind. According to tradition the Prince becomes King when the old regent dies; but as luck would have it the crown was light years away and turned to dust for his claim. Sometimes - _ more times than some _ in truth - the ghost of his homeland chased Vegeta in his nightmares, seeking revenge; together with its inhabitants. Their voices grew restless in his head, wails of disappointment latched with hatred. _ You had it easy_, they admonished. _ Whoring yourself out just to live a life of degradation. _They were not wrong in their assumptions.

He kneeled in front of Frieza, picking up the crumbs of the lizard’s victories to shape them as his own. Year after year, the prince killed, purged and almost died at the behest of that monster; doing everything under the resented watch of the last survivors of his race. Nappa was too idealistic, believing he could bite the hand that fed him without consequences. Raditz was the son of indolence, a self-trained opportunist that waited for others to take decisions in order not to fall victim of demeaning sanctions. Both of them followed him blindly, looking up to him as the backbone of their deceased race. It was easy to take advantage of them and play along with Frieza’s game until it lasted.

Now, this is the same. This is why he chose to stay on this little, pitiful asshole planet they call Earth. Also why he’s letting the female earthling talk to him without blowing her head off, she is what Nappa and Raditz were at their time: the best medium to gain what he wants. She seems to have taken an interest in him, as was the case in the past with Frieza. Perhaps a new experiment. The saiyan never missed the way her eyes glittered with curiosity at the barest mention of alien technology, since his arrival. He has, with purpose, let his lips unwind at the right time more than once on the subject to catch her reaction. Subtle, concise, with economy.

“So does the regen tank use stem cells? Look at this,” she sketches a quick design on a napkin, marking some areas with bold black streaks. Her lines are quick but straight, her drawings detailed but understandable. “My guess would be that the liquid works just as natural reepithelialization, so it must be a cocktail of different types of blood containing tissue-specific stems that work at inhuman speed. I mean, I patched up Son for ages before the advent of Senzu beans, but even your super immune system wouldn’t be so fast- so there are three options: First, my prior assumption. Second, they used technology to create nano-platelets. Third, they squeezed multiple Turritopsis dohrnii in a jar and added some namekians in the mix.” She adds, her voice is tinted with sarcasm.

Unamused, he doesn't respond. Instead, he feels like walking around the room, toward the fridge. Without compliments, the prince slams the refrigerator open… digging for frozen raw meat. When he's content with the choice, a brisk step brings the saiyan back to his original spot. He drops the steak on the table without ceremonies eyeing the alien woman as if she were a mere servant. "I'm hungry. Cook this," he demands.

She doesn't even look up, her eyes barely skim on the piece of meat, then, she points at a sideboard. "Pans are in there. Have fun."

Here she goes again. Trying to boss him around with infuriating nonchalance. Vegeta stares cooly at her bent form for a few seconds. If she refuses to cook his meals, she'll also deal with the consequences. He retrieves the meat without protest, and with a deft motion throws it in the air. In his right hand, a ki blast is ready to roast the target.

"You're exactly like Son." She points out.

The meat falls on the floor.

His blood boils while sharply, his gaze shifts to her.

"What?" The question leaves her lips like an innocent protest, unmentioning the unspoken 'aren't you going to set my house on fire anymore?'

He understands her real intentions just a second too late to mend his mistake. The tendons in his jaw tense. She doesn't even deserve a response, so he won't give her one. On the contrary, his palm opens flat to the floor, the circle of energy he had generated before grows in his palm before leaving it.

It chars the meat.

They both observe the carbonized steak for a brief moment. Until their gazes lock.

"If you don't wish to suffer the same fate, you'll watch your mouth from now on."

He got his point across. Her pitiful ki is wobbling like that of a prey cowering in fear. She's struggling to keep a front, which is commendable... but stupid. She can't do anything against him.

The prince turns away, leaving the house. As he walks outside, where the night has ensconced the manicured lawns of this exaggerated place… his stride slows down, until it stops a few feet away from the viewing window that gives into the house. For a short, foolish second, the fleeting thought of turning around and looking over his shoulder takes hold but his body tenses. He doesn't do that and continues walking.

A foreign feeling, alike to dissatisfaction, washes over him. 

Vegeta doesn't linger on the thought any further, deciding to discard it and put his mind to better use.

Comparing him to Kakarot…

He needs to train harder.


	2. The Splintered Slave

Perhaps seeking comfort in a machine wasn't the right choice. Not today at least. Her hands sting even beneath working gloves. Scattered wires, microchips and forsaken blueprints smeared with grease embrace her in a ring-around-the-rosey type of chaos. The result of a sleepless night of work lies in front of her scraped knees, which feel numb and itchy. The more she stares at the tank, the more the prototype looks wrong from every angle. 

Having never seen the real thing, in her mind, had its perks. Originality, for one. Bulma Briefs doesn't just remake stuff, she improves it creating her own version. However, to patent something alien she'd also need to own the right materials. She puckers her lips in a childish pout. If only Vegeta were prone to real communication instead of behaving like a humanoid version of Morse code she wouldn't be wandering in this dead end maze. 

She drops the welder in her hand, shifting to sit on her heels whilst chewing on her upper lip. They must have hit him harder than she thought… her words. Joking about power feuds, especially now when the prospect of death feels so incumbent, hadn’t been a smart move. They have to keep Vegeta on their side, no matter what. _ She _ has to. That's why she offered him shelter. That's why she's trying to desperately build a bridge between her and him, so they can eventually meet halfway. He might not be the best person to entrust their lives to, but neither is he the worst. It's been a year since they started to live under the same roof, during that time span - albeit cohabiting with a thousand Namekians - never once has that man raised his hand on them or her family, that must mean something. Doesn't it? 

Sometimes, it feels like he's not even here. His presence in her life could be comparable to that of a ghost in a haunted house; it's actually there but you don't get to see the creature unless it decides to show up. She didn't expect, in truth, to discover such a reserved and hermetic side in a person that just a few months ago used to laugh maniacally in her face. At first, she believed that behaviour might be due to the new environmental impact he suffered. But Vegeta is supposed to be an ex-soldier, someone who's lived his life at the front, under Frieza, possibly subject to continuous migrations. Would someone so accustomed to change suddenly turn shy in front of a weaker race? No. He must be everything but that, most certainly crass and dauntless, ruthless and plain-spoken. Or… so she thought. 

She stalks his training regimen because she's child of curiosity more than her mother's… Gods only know how many nights she has lost perked on top of the consolle in her lab, sipping on coffee and noting down his progress; his body reactions, or how long it takes for him to destroy her bots. She studies him, watches him, even doodles his prominent profile on the top corner of her blueprints as if he were her own creature. Serious, determined to the point of not sleeping or eating for days… his drive doesn't seem to come from bloodthirst, but from sheer self-discipline. 

And like that, she started to feel drawn to him like a moth to a burning light. Because it's not possible that a being so much akin to her can exist in the same time and space. Not here, not now. Attraction? Scientific interest? For the first time it doesn't matter. 

She wants to ask. She wants to know. She wants to unravel the complicated dedalus he is. But she can't do that without his cooperation. He's hard to approach, and even harder will be gain his trust. 

Not now, though. Grabbing a sketchbook and a half chewed pencil, she gives form to a new design. An egg-shaped machine sustained by a total of five legs. The graphite taps on the paper. She managed, like the others, to just steal a quick glance but the main components of that complex device are still fresh in her mind, even after two weeks. Propulsion engines that replicate sound waves, there’s no doubt that whoever is the inventor behind that monstrous technology worked or still works in that compound. That silhouette, that mechanism… are all sons of her father. She’d recognize them everywhere, because it’s a trademark of Capsule Corporation.

Moreover… that boy. Someone who can turn Super Saiyan but according to Vegeta cannot be part of their race, a kid wearing their brand, which makes him awfully close to them. Whose stern, glacial eyes evoke the same emotions of the man who floods her mind with unresponded questions. A sixteen years old stranger from the future that seemed to know them too well for being just an outsider or a common employee. At first, she thought he might be Gohan’s brother- but his fair complexion, the particular color of his hair, and those irises which seem to mirror her own…

She might have laughed at herself at such silly and preposterous thoughts if _ facts _ and Son’s stupid mouth didn’t confirm all her suspicions. For him, to say such an uncharacteristic line: ‘_have a healthy baby.’ _ She isn’t pregnant and doesn’t plan to have children for the next foreseeable future; if that sentence would have come from Krillin, who’s always been a sort of jester in their group, then she wouldn’t have lingered on that notion more than she should. But Son - knowing the type - isn’t the kind of man who throws sexual innuendos in people’s face out of the blue. He’s the same guy that, at fourteen, believed girls and boys were alike. Damn, he searched under her skirt for balls. Balls! He was also the same man who didn’t even bother to announce the birth of little Gohan, bringing his son with him at the Kame House as if nothing happened when the kid was already four! And suddenly, he comes back after _ three hundred sixty-five _days later and the first thing he has to say to her is to procreate a sane progeny? This isn’t rocket science, it’s Son’s legendary verbal dysentery.

A surge of anxiety and anger fills her hands, prompting her to tear apart the whole sketchbook. She wish she was stupid, that her brain didn’t work so fast and so much. If she was an idiot, maybe she would live a blissful life of lies, walking on red carpets and posing for mags at most. But she thinks _too much_ and a _lot_, and the results aren’t always a eureka moment. Now, supposing that time traveler is her spawn, and crossing out two saiyans out of three because there’s no way in Hell she could produce heirs with a minor or his goddamned father… and according to Vegeta’s spite - he said that there were no other saiyans in the whole universe besides them - this makes him the only candidate for the task. Which makes this whole ordeal even crazier! 

She’d be lying to herself if she swore that the thought of having sex with him never crossed her fantasies. There’s no man in that group of ripped fighting maniacs that didn’t visit her dreams at least once in all those years. But a fantasy is a fantasy, reality is a different matter altogether. She can’t even deny the possibility to carry alien babies because Gohan is the living proof that this isn’t poorly written science-fiction. Vegeta is currently in her house, under her roof, living with her. Should she define mere coincidence such a vast array of intersecting lines? She is a scientist, Hell, she lives for proving theories!

“I need a break, a bottle of wine and a good counselor.” Yes! Yes, she needs all of that and much more. She’d like to go out, have a nice dinner and mind-blowing sex with Yamcha, because she needs to drown in a reality that’s existing now, detache her mind from romcoms turning into tragedies. For one day, she’d like not to think about death, fights, Saiyans or unborn children. She’s developing a regeneration tank for them, for her friends, for Son, Yamcha, Krillin, Tenshinhan, Vegeta… for those stupid coconut heads that decided unanimously that a suicidal mission would be better than prevention. Because a chance might arise that senzu will be unavailable like it happened after Namek. If what the boy coming from the future said was true, then, they must race against death at any cost. She won’t allow them to die, she’ll fight too, with the means she has.

But she can’t fight with her head swimming in dramaland. A change of pace is in order to redress the balance of her flailing neurons. Hopping on her feet, she dusts off overalls and shirt, adjusts her perm a bit and leaves the room, breathing deeply and slowly through the diaphragm.

A warm vernal sun salutes her eye bags, glaring at her questionable working outfit from behind a few clouds. The sparkling rays are death rays piercing her fatigued eyes, but she doesn’t care. To her parents, she leaves a quick memo, which just warns her father not to tinker with her inventions while she’s out. With a click and a boom the aircraft 009 is out of the dynocap; Bulma jumps inside as fast as she can.

\---

Yamcha is sleeping in his car when she reaches his house, which is not a proper abode but a van because the man never entirely settled since his burglar days and probably never will. When he’s not mooching off Capsule Corporation, he’s a regular guest at Kame House, when he’s in neither of the two places; Bulma is sure to find him here. She rarely visits him but when she does, usually it’s to remind herself of their old days. It doesn’t matter if he’s the accomplished ace of the Taitans, some habits die hard even for a domesticated human like Yamcha. She hides a small smile at the sight of Puar curled up on his chest. They’re just feigning.

“Quit this game boys, it’s been twelve years already… don’t you think it’s getting old?”

Yamcha and Puar keep sitting still for a while, but the man is the first to capitulate. His half embarrassed, half content laugh resounds in the empty lot infecting the shapeshifter and soon after, even her. “Okay, okay, you win… but I swear we didn’t expect you.” He says, voice latched with a faint hue of sarcasm. She can be calm around Yamcha, he’s still - even after countless fast and loose - a constant in her life that helps her to keep life real. She raises a bottle of vintage wine and shakes it a bit like a greeting as she replies “Mhh… surprise?”

“Oh-oh, special occasion? Wait. It’s not that _ time of the year_, right? I’m pretty sure it’s not, because I circled it on the calendar.”

“Please, don’t refer as our anniversary as you’d talk about my period.”

“I swear I use a different marker for that one.”

“Okay,” she massages her temples, “Thank you for keeping tab of my menstrual cycle but I’m here for a different reason. I needed a little comfort _talk, if you know what I mean_. Are you up for it?”

Yamcha smiles wolfishly and outstretches a hand toward the shapeshifter, waggling his fingers. “Puar, give me the key of the van.”

\---

When Bulma wakes up again it’s past six in the evening and she has to wrestle her way out of Yamcha’s tight grip around her waist to get out of the bed. A bed that’s extremely galling on her back and it’s one of the reasons why she prefers to be the host instead of the guest. From the look on his face, Bulma can tell her boyfriend was plentily satisfied with her performance. 

Lucky him. 

It’s an automatic gesture, her finger brushes away a stray dark lock from his face, with too much gentleness, as if suddenly she could break him. She doesn’t want to break him. She doesn’t want to break _ them_. Anxiety overwhelms her again, and suddenly, the one she sees beside her is not Yamcha anymore. The hand retracts fast and her face crumples in tight mortification. 

She needs to get out. Fast. Go anywhere, but not here, nor at home. 

Her constant is slowly morphing _ into a vast array of intersecting lines _and it scares the Hell out of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to **Lady_Red** and **Ruthlesscupcake** for their precious suggestions and all the cheering from the Vegebulocracy server!


	3. History in the Waves

It was a lesson he learned when he was still a cub: planets reflect the strength of its occupants; therefore, just ensure limited resources to immigrants. The Earth, in his eyes, is no different from the spits of rock he used to occupy back in his service days. Purges were a means to prey on fertile lands whose underdeveloped specimen failed to make the most of. It’s been a fluke that this lowly star system resided out of Frieza’s radar at the time. This ‘Earth’ seems to possess both strategic proportions and orbit, its negligible mass is sheltered around a cluster of other inhospitable planetoids that deceive the eye. The _ emperor, _in his time of yore, was still an amateur in his job. Pompous and blinded by his own power, the lizard delegated even the mapping of galaxies to his bootlickers, which is also why he needed Saiyans in his ranks. Not only because he feared the legend, but because nobody knew the skies like them. There’s a fat chance that Kakarot managed to save his skin just for such a reason…

Or he truly landed on a mere ball of garbage, as evidenced by the frequent power outages this dreadful place suffers; a major hindrance to his training and a waste of time he doesn’t possess. It was enough a minor discharge of ki to shut down the whole place. It’s been fifteen minutes already, and the power still hasn’t returned. His knuckles sink through the plate of the control board, and the alloy melts and hisses under the scorching weight. Usually, an automatic software takes care of malfunctions in one minute at most. “**Why is it taking so long?**” The sonic boom unleashed by his fury cracks and crumples the walls, sending off more than one alarm at once. What was supposed to be a reinforced door gives way immediately to a couple of power balls and he’s out a moment later, up in the air, scanning the surrounding area in search for the weak pulse of either of the two brainy Earthlings’ ki.

Neither of them happen to be nearby, a discovery that swells the veins on his forehead.

They don’t understand, how can they not _ understand _ that even the barest second means _ everything _ to him? How can they dilly-dally around knowing that he could wipe off their existence in a moment if he just so wished?

He doesn’t walk, he _ flies _ toward the main entrance and barges in the compound. Many employers crouch down and scream, frightened by the instant rush of air he brings with him, which is an intense spinning that blows out the windows. 

“Oh oh oh my! Oh, my! Vegeta dear, what is happening?” 

The Saiyan barely hears the loud screech coming from beneath him, and shoots a deadly look toward the minuscule blonde woman just because she dared to attach terms of endearment to his _ holy _ name. Upon recognizing her as the child-bearer of the younger scientist, he brusquely interrupts his bee-line to the labs and descends in front of her with a killing intent brewing under skin.

“Tell me where they are.” He thunders in her face, squaring his shoulders.

The flirtatious funky, taken aback for a moment, leans imperceptibly backwards- the china strategically balanced in the tray in her hands rattles. “W-who, honey?”

“Knock it off! Your progeny and the whiskered fool. Tell me where they hide!”

“B-both Bulma and my husband are out at the moment,” she staggers for a second but then is up in _ his face_. She flashes out a smile that should be a detriment to her race, but is so unexpected that he loses his momentum, confounded, and steps back. “I was about to go in Town myself. Oh, I just had the most exquisite idea, will you accompany me? I’ll take you to my husband, he’s currently helping a colleague in Satan City. While we’re at it, I can be your Cicero and show you around!”

Reacting confidently in front of such an undaunted display becomes harder by the second. He must not, and will not give in to her malicious tricks, though. “I shall take you nowhere. You will, on the contrary, reach out for the man and bring him here immediately. I need his services right away.”

She stares at him in a way he’d define as intrigued, but there should be no intrigue in gazing in the eye of your murderer. Her non-existent ki does not dance wildly like the one of her daughter in his presence. It’s stable and relaxed now, totally in contrast of what it was just a few seconds before. Either this female abomination has never experienced true fear, or she is just terribly imbecilic. “Aw, but I’ll be so lonely if I go by myself and you’ll have to wait a while for one of them to come back. Knowing my daughter, she might not be back for a month or two.” Her pathetic attempt at luring him with _ her_, just convinces Vegeta of one thing.

“You’re useless.” He says, flat and hard. All of them, each and every fucking one count less than the dust under his boots and they don’t get it. He’s about to turn away, when the earthling press something against his chest and… winks, winks _ at him _like a sordid slut.

“You must be hungry,” she says, “take this with you.”

Vegeta scrunches his face, snatches the piece of plastic she offered and haughtily takes off.

\---

He was a fool to stick to this world. It is evident that the competence he intended to exploit was nothing but a mere chimaera. At this pace, this desperate chase of his will never end. Kakarot… that brat, they haunt him like demons. Demons he can not shake off from his nightmares. He does not feel the force of the wind against his body, because he’s faster and his power defies the nature of this disgusting, pacific world. Yet, the force that engulfs his body is never enough, every time new energy fills it to the brim, he feels emptier and emptier. In his mind there’s no such a thing as him falling behind, it’s a thought he cannot process as true albeit being conscious that there’s no other reality but the one he saw with his eyes. The first time Kakarot transformed he was there, resurrected from the will of a misinterpreted wish; but alive, breathing, and facing the future he’d always wished for… as a spectator. In that moment he was so elated that Frieza was going to die by the hand of a saiyan, so jubilant that he’d finally get what he deserved that didn’t see _ the reality_. Just after that, just when fate had tore him away from the chance to attack that son of a bitch… then… it became clear. It became so clear that he wasn’t the chosen one, that it hurt. Hurt in a way that he’d never felt before, not even when he kissed the fucking ground Frieza walked upon, not even when he knew for sure that his race was extinct; not even when he wasted his fucking life weaving a plan that had finally crumbled under his feet once he looked the evidence in the eye. He was no match for that monster. He trembled in front of him, like a baby… he shed frustrated tears because just in that goddamn moment understanding dawned on him that he was not enough. He’d never been, since the beginning. So, seeing Kakarot taking what should have been his stage stung more than he believed it would. Why him? Why had that traitorous being, that even refused his origins, been the one destined to wield the power he’d always dreamed about?

Hatred, pure hatred started to grow at a disruptive pace, twisting around his guts and planting seeds of jealousy in his wounded pride. And then, when he finally believed that ignoble peasant dead… he came back to life. No, he had never died as if immortal, he stepped on him again, overriding his light with the one of the super saiyan. Not just him. A kid who claimed to be one of them, who didn’t look like them, who slain Frieza without effort and whose power went far beyond the legend had appeared from nowhere and prophesized their death. 

He is destined to die and fall in the dust without achieving the power he was born for. No. Never. He is the almighty, the one that shall walk among Gods at the end of the time and brandish a power never seen before and will bend the universe at his feet. He’s the prince of all Saiyans: Regent of the fourth generation of an indestructible race and he will no longer kneel before anyone. He will make that power his and destroy this godforsaken planet and the trash that habits it with his own hands.

Yes.

A ferocious, fiery curve quirks his lips upwards. He feels his cheeks tilting, a new form of tenacity stirring within him. The androids’ lives are a ticking clock, and he will stop it.

\---

In the end, she fled. A sigh leaves Bulma's lips. How long has she wandered around aimlessly, like a fugitive, through the streets of Westcity? One hour? Two? She can't tell. She had intended to leave the van without Yamcha noticing, but her erratic zig-zagging in search of clothes, in the end, had roused him. His bed head was terrible, even after a short nap, and waking properly he had propped himself on his elbows watching her with a lazy smile on his face. "Are you leaving already?" He had asked, stretching his arms overhead. 

She didn't want to leave, especially not when that warm, lopsided grin made her go all funny inside. If she'd choose to cave in listening to the egotistical voice that suggested her to bury that stupid paranoia deep down her heart, she'd gladly respond 'no, I'm just going to make us a coffee.' But she couldn't stand the thought of spending time with Yamcha, knowing that she was going to pity every damn second of that encounter. She almost blurted out everything, in the hope that he might just accept her worries as one of her many pindaric flights. They'd laugh and he'd stroke her hair, telling her everything was going to be alright. 

But it doesn't work like that. Yamcha is one of the strongest men she knows, not just physically, but psychologically he's a rock. Perhaps, he's a bit over the top when it comes to confidence, but so is she. He wouldn't take it well. She's sure he'd play the cool part, laughing at her antics and patting her back. But he'd know right away the implications behind her confession. He'd break. Because she can break him and she knows. He's got his pride, but it's different from Vegeta's, Piccolo's or even Krillin's… he wouldn't mind throwing it under a bus if necessary. For her, he would. And she doesn't want to see him go that far. 

So, to him, she had just replied "Yes, I've got stuff on going at the lab. Just needed a quick break." She acts _tough_ too, so often that it has become a protective layer. When she acts tough, Yamcha is at ease. So he was fine letting her go, they're always been like this. That's also what she loves about him. Yamcha has never been pushy, pretentious or bossy. He always accepted their relationship as something natural, to let flow as it came. That is why it lasted so long.

She's not herself anymore since that fateful day. Bulma even thought of searching for Piccolo and Son to force them to spit everything out. She knows that they're training in the mountains, and it wouldn't take much to reach them. She also never moved a step in that direction, because knowing that she's right would disrupt her balance and would make her disgusted to know that her life is nothing but a canned box made of prearranged decisions. 

Some lampposts flicker on overhead, lighting the bench where she's sitting on like a homeless person. In her hands there's a little cup of smoking instant noodles. She frowns at it, thinking that those shriveled rice worms could be her for some mischievous God. 

“Well, let’s see if you can predict this,” it’s childish that she’s stabbing the contents of her supposed dinner just to defy a deity living in her head. When it’s gooey enough to give her goosebumps, Bulma chugs it down like beer, _ ahhing _ in delight. “And this is what you call variables, Mr. Puppeteer.” She declares, eyeing the sky as if she was truly debating with someone. However, her victorious mood doesn’t last long and morphs into a wistful sigh.

Just as she puts down the cup, resuming her forlorn guess-the-passerby game, that she almost gets a seizure.

Vegeta is standing in front of her, unabashed as ever, and if the look of reproach in his sooty gaze is any indication of his current feelings, she’d say he’s disgusted. 

“Bet you enjoyed the little show.” She quips, trying to defuse the sudden tension in the air. 

He doesn’t respond and just keeps studying her with those penetrant eyes of his, as if he’s trying to decipher her lunatic ways. He’s the last person she wanted to see right now, because he’s been at the forefront of her mind for all the day. She hates this. On a closer inspection, though, just know she realizes where they are, or better, where _ he is. _Standing amidst a crowd of Earthlings walking to and fro on a bustling commercial street. So she pops the question naturally, the words unravel by themself. “What are you doing here?”

At her surprised question, he tenses up but doesn’t lose his aplomb. “Go on with my training.” He rebukes, grinding his teeth.

“Oh, I see.” She crosses her legs, professionally, and mimics his intimidating posture. “Something is broken, and you went to all the trouble just to tell in my face. How devoted.” She went rigid and something is itching inside, like it bothers her. “Well, you can go back and ask my father, because I don’t feel like going home right now.”

“Let me remind you that you can try my patience only _ so far_,” he raises just a finger and, on the tip of it, slowly, power starts to flow out in a tiny, circular ball. “I have no use for you or this planet, and if just I so much wish-”

“Okay, do it.” She cuts him off, snapping like a bitch. She’s fucking tired of his continuous threats. “End my life and destroy the Earth. That is your wish, right? You stated yourself that we’re no use to you. So what are you waiting for?”

His eyes widen for a fraction, but that’s the maximum display of emotion she is able to coax out of the alien. His attacking stance loosens up and he shifts on the balls of his feet, almost… relaxed.

“Are you telling me you don’t care?” 

This is the first time he asks for something that’s not related to him, and as awkward as it may be, she just feels so frustrated and mad that has no time to linger on that thought. “Yes!” She yells, and stands up, and draws unwanted attention from the pedestrians passing by. “Yes, I care. I care, and a lot! Who would fucking want give up on life? Who would fucking want to see their home explode like fireworks by the hand of a goddamn intergalactic warlord? Nobody, and most certainly not me. But, if my other choice is kneel and beg you to spare my sorry ass, I’d rather die now and here. I’m probably going to kick the bucket in three years anyways, so I’d just delay the inevitable.” 

This time, she can’t really decipher the fleeting emotion that passes through Vegeta’s black gaze. It’s partially obscured by the dawning sun but looks like wonder, bafflement… it’s raw and naked and… unexpectedly expressive.

It moves her so much that she's forced to refocus on something else. For example, on the hand Vegeta is still keeping firm along his hip. That is when she notices that he’s holding a little plastic card between his fingers.

“Is… is that a credit card?!” She laughs, and her question sounds a little too much enthused to be genuine curiosity.

“So it seems.” 

She didn't expect a response, especially, not this serene. When she looks at him again, Vegeta is still watching her; whatever had made her heart flutter is gone, replaced by apparent neutrality. 

He's still waiting for her to go with him. He looks so out of place, standing there, closed off to the world but in the middle of it. Whoever walks behind this man gets inevitably eclipsed by his strong presence. Every detail of him screams intimidation and the way he never averts his gaze makes her uncomfortable.

She found a worthy opponent.

"I will come back under one condition." She raises a finger in front of her face and winks mischievously.

He's unmovable, and she can't believe he takes her seriously when he replies "State your terms." 

Bulma's front drops for a second. He caught her off guard. But she's fast to recover. 

"Take me out for dinner."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big, big, big, ultra-hyper-mega thanks to [Rogue_1102](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogue_1102) for betaing this chapter and giving her precious intel! ❤❤❤
> 
> Ps. I'd be extremely glad to know what you think. Thus, if you wish to leave a comment know that you're making my day!


	4. Vacant Tale

The earthling made a call before reaching this place and upon their arrival the building was already empty, with the sole exception of a couple of attendants; who have been instructed to come out from their bugholes just to serve food. She also used the credit card to show him how to use it and then returned the device to him. To what end? It's still unclear what game this woman is playing; asking him to offer food whereas she is the one paying for it makes her sound like an utter dumbass. Her pitiful ki is wobbly, like a few days ago, which means she's on edge but uselessly trying to hide it from him. It makes even less sense that she asked to be fed, but he's the only one eating. He inspected every dish that had been put under his nose before deciding if it was edible. Hardly any poison present on such a retrograde planet would be capable to disrupt his body, however, this woman is also a scientist; one that probably spent her free time collecting Kakarot’s piss just to study him. He’s pretending not to notice the way she’s staring at him, the gleam of fascination in her eyes. It makes him feel like a caged animal on display. He doesn’t like it.

"I wonder how it works." She says. Her timbre is nonchalant, wariness is not present and her smile is too amicable for someone's who's got one foot in the grave. As a response his teeth tighten around a chicken leg, tearing away the flesh from the bone with a grunt.

"I mean, your gastrointestinal system...I find it fascinating."

He doesn't bother chewing, just swallows the contents in his mouth. The first time he heard a similar line was in the sanitary wing of F-83, one of the many planets under the Cold Empire. He was half butchered and the only portable healing pod present in the spaceship was broken. He doesn't remember who told him that, most likely someone whose neck he snapped later, a random hasher, one of those self-appointed 'physicians' who stitched soldiers with rusty wires and cauterized wounds with soldering guns; what he knew for sure was that such a race, like the Tsufuru, collected alien cells to develop weapons against them on the off chance that they might get attacked by those aliens.

"How many calories do you burn using ki waves?" She enquiries as if he should know. In the end he sets his gaze on the earthling, looking her square in the eye. It looks like she was prodding him to get his attention, because now that she has it, her head tilts and her pupils dilate. He learned to read body language when he was still a cub, because it is vital in melee combat. Is she setting a trap? Or is she trying to domesticate him like Kakarot?

"Why, hello?" She waves her hand, "Yes, I'm talking to you."

"Spit it out." He demands, just flat out. "You have a reason for feeding me, which is it?"

Now she seems taken aback by his question, but if her body tensed up just for a moment, now it’s back as it was before, apparently relaxed. The female puts her chin in her hand, flashing him an ambiguous smirk. "You're all work and no play, uh? I never would have pegged you for an A-type."

He doesn't understand her goddamn way of speaking.

"Okay, uhm, let's say that the first time I saw you I'd have bet you were the kind of tyrant who would torture his prey just for fun."

He lets out an entertained sneer. "You guessed right."

"Oh yeah, this whole 'I'm using you for my shady skulduggery as long as you're useful' kind of foreplay. It's a bit clichéd, but I see where you're coming from."

"Hardly." He sniffs, "respond to my question."

"Aw, seriously what a killjoy. Very well." Now she squares her shoulders, putting both of her elbows on top of the table. "How do you feel about me?"

His mind processes the question as something trifling. Why would she ask something so obvious? "You're a nuisance."

The earthling sticks out her tongue in a very childish fashion but resumes a vague amount of seriousness immediately. "The feeling is mutual but... there's nothing else? I'm a beauty, don't I shake up your hormones or something?"

A piece of food ends up in the wrong airway, almost choking him. Vegeta stands up, slamming his hands on the hard wooden surface. His eyes open wide. Is she implying he should feel attraction towards her... such… such a lowly creature? "The fuck are you babbling about?"

"First of all, sit down. It's just a question, you don't need to get so worked up... unless I hit a soft spot?"

She's trying to ridicule him, _ him_. He'll slay her right now. He grinds his teeth, feeling a thin layer of energy starting to coat his body.

"Okay, okay! Ignore my question. I was kidding, can you calm down a bit? My questions have strings attached. I started to build a regen tank and I want you to be my test subject."

He doesn't sit back, still eyeing her warily. Test subject. He was right, she is interested in him for the same reason he is interested in her… they both need to reach a goal. This puts him at ease, albeit he does not know why. "Nonsense." That is his final response, he will no longer pose as entertaining pastime for this debauched creature. "Stand up, we're going back."

However, as he heads for the door, she doesn't follow.

"Oh no, your highness, we're not going anywhere."

"We're going. Your terms were that I took you out for dinner and I did, now as per agreement you follow me without another word. Refuse again and I'll raze this whole venue to ashes... and everyone in it."

The woman draws in her eyebrows, her lips twitch as if she’s about to retort.

"Before you add anything else, know that my patience has reached its limit."

Finally, he hears the sound of the chair scraping on the floor. She whispers “what a bastard.”

He's glad they finally agree on something.

\---

She's walking behind him, feigning anger, but her head is elsewhere. As she had already concluded, he's not easy to crack. There's a sort of barrier around him, a thick and unbreakable wall made of fucking alien material that she can't chip off, even just a bit. She even went so far as buying a whole restaurant to make him feel more at ease, freeing it from prying eyes in the hope that, with food in front of him, Vegeta might thaw a bit. Bulma crosses out the direct approach from her mental list, the man is frugal and alert. Wittier than she expected him to be and apparently, this is as close as they can get to a real conversation. Until now, he'd been willing to share just crumbs of knowledge concerning technology as a sort of bribe, probably to keep her at arm's length.

However, this small exchange served a purpose anyway. She learned that if she pushes specific buttons and corners him, he's more prone to interaction.

Also, he doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about her— since not even her deadly wink attack worked on him - wearing down the possibilities that her theories might be true. Perhaps, it's really all just in her head.

Raising her attention in front of her, Bulma frames Vegeta's shoulders, which despite his lean body are buff and defined; large and powerful. Nothing she hasn't seen and re-seen being constantly surrounded by a posse of men sculpted in the stone. She tilts her head again, thinking, studying, wondering. She doesn't understand what could bring someone like him and her together. Yes, bulging muscles are a kink and being bossed around from time to time makes her panties a little wetter than usual but... that's it. Fantasy material, not shit that could build up a stable relationship. Which... could be perfectly reasonable. She's starting to see a viable pattern. She's actively pursuing him out of curiosity and Vegeta, despite being a prideful motherfucker, will go down any route in order to pursue his goal. He accepted to 'take her out for dinner' in exchange for her services, knowing that she's stubborn enough not to bend to his will, nor to meaningless intimidation. Perhaps, because he himself knows that he cannot blow up the planet risking to fight Son still unripe and lose against him. 

Conclusion: he’d willingly fuck her if that brought him a step nearer to the super saiyan. He's a bit obsessive but… he has a damn beautiful head... in utter contrast with his despicable personality that-

She's so immersed in her thoughts that she doesn't even notice Vegeta stopping abruptly at a turn of the road so she crashes into him nose first; winning one of his proverbial harrumps.

Vegeta discharges just a bit of energy at his feet. "I'm not carrying you, so you better have one of those weird gadgets on you."

And... she has not even time to respond because he takes off without even glancing back. The asshole!

"Of course I have Dynocaps on me!" She shouts at the sky, to nobody. And obviously, she can't just pop one in the middle of the street with passing cars. "Truth be told... I don't want to go home." She says to herself in a whisper. All she wants is some time alone, a bubble bath and that fucking glass of wine. All she got instead were a lukewarm noodle soup and a pissed off saiyan.

Gosh, this whole situation feels like when she's on her period. Everything is annoying and ugly. She'd like to be one of those girls who can weep everything out of their system, but no. She has to pile everything up and just explode like a ticking bomb at the end.

"If I could just stand sitting on my ass for the next year and wait for the Dragon balls to reactivate, I know very well what I'd wish for..." to wipe all of this shit from her head, so whatever happens happens.

\---

Her latest six-speed jewel is a vintage bike modeled after one of the first and classic rainproof cop-like motors, the PFF74839, she’s satisfied with the massive fairings that embrace her and improve the aerodynamic characteristics; this is the fastest and has excellent road grip. Bulma frees it on an empty roadway, jumping on the vehicle as soon as it pops out from the capsule. It’s been a while since she rode one, aircrafts have grown more on her in the last decade. The engine starts with a growl, much like Vegeta’s last dismissive gurgle and she speeds up immediately, eager to feel the nostalgic breeze on her face— a tear-jerker that pulls back unwanted memories from where she had cautiously stored them, making the forgotten lump of fear and remorse climb back in her throat._ It'll pour soon. _She thinks, spotting heinous dark clouds following her in the corner of the rearview mirror. In the hope to find a distraction from the rising anxiety, the scientist goes back to refocus on the road. 

It's bumpy. Like life has always been for her, the life she chose for herself a long time ago. She shouldn't be a stranger to sudden turns and yet, here she is; playing games of logic with a serial murderer just to prove that she's too bright to fall into the mainstream web of fate. 

She should just leave things as they are, that's why she wasn't supposed to know… after all. 

Rain saves her from falling deeper into her self-dug ditch, the gentle tip-tap on the windscreen catches her attention; which for a fraction moves skyward. There, just diagonal to her field of view, Vegeta is flying a few yards away. She's surprised to see him there, he's so fast that it wouldn't take more than a bunch of seconds for him to reach Capsule Corporation. 

An amused curve pushes her bottom lip upwards. "Trying to make sure I'm following you now? What a self-righteous prig." Her fingers suddenly grip the brake, the tip of the shoe touches the ground to give her enough leeway so that the bike can turn on itself. What if she takes a different route? Will their roles reverse?

\--

Thick layers of smoke-like clouds hide splashes of blinding light. The sky today is him, somewhere underneath all that condense of fog power is brewing, charging and morphing into something frightening. His gloved hand closes in a tight fist along his hip. Soon. Soon he'll mark his destination, as soon as possible, he cannot let himself fall further behind.

As if someone else has heard him, fighting with all their might to shatter his volition, the sharp forewarning that something has changed blocks his flight abruptly. His head whips backwards as fast, seeking with rapt attention the frame of the earthling. He finds her immediately among the moving, luminescent dots glittering on the busy street. The revelation that she's trying to defy him again makes his teeth clench.

He had warned her.

His body bends vertically and dives downward from sky to earth in a split second. The air itself opens at his passage, he skims on the concrete, which splinters and rises overturning cars and road signs. His gaze is set on the only target he needs to reach.

He's just a few feet away, hovering above her when he outstretches his hand but the blue haired demon hangs off and shifts her body weight toward the ground, trying to escape him. But it’s not her doing what makes him miss, it's the rain. The tires of her strange bike start to tilt off, giving the impression that the vehicle is falling. He's already on the move before she can counter him, hurtling sideways and flanking the slow two wheeled contraption. 

If he just moved at human speed, he'd have been hit by two fucking missiles, that now explode in the sky like ki shots. He's genuinely impressed, for a second, but doesn't lose his focus. He grabs the whole motorcycle in one hand, lifting it and the driver in the air with him.

The human yelps, sticking to her machine as if for dear life. "Nononono!" Her yelling is irrelevant. "For God's sake, what the Hell are you doing Vegeta?!"

"What I should've done since the beginning, putting you in your place." He simply communicates, ignoring if she heard him or not.

\---

"We are back for the local news regarding the disaster that happened today on the 54-XY, a few kilometers away from the heart of Westcity. The police are currently investigating what people claimed to be a sudden tornado-"

Bulma turns off the television, toweling her wet hair. She throws a miffed glance at the one responsible for all that chaos, who doesn’t look as repentant as he should. Instead, the man who now leans against the doorframe gives her the stink eye.

“Did you have to go _ that far_?” She lets it out almost as a tired reprimand.

He does ignore her, as usual, using instead his black piercing gaze to get his point across. She’s not even surprised to understand what he doesn’t say. “It’s useless for you to sulk.” Bulma walks over the big sofa splayed across the lounge, and drops on it sluggishly. “As you can see the power is back. _ You _ broke the control panel, if you stayed put and waited for me or dad to come back this wouldn’t have happened.” She raises a hand mid-air, before he can throw whatever insult at her. “It’ll take at least two days to rebuild the consolle. And no, you can’t steal another spaceship because _ the only one available _is still under repa-”

Vegeta's fist hits the wall, hard. Bulma yelps, springing out of the sofa as fast as a cheetah. Once on her feet again, she feels utterly cornered. The man is pinning her under a dangerous stare. Even if he's at least twenty feet away, she cannot move. Her body is completely frozen in place, like it was on Namek. She swallows, cold droplets fall on her face from the tips of damp hair.

His eyes move downward but she doesn't dare to follow his gaze. Instead of lashing at her he turns away and leaves the room.

Just then Bulma finally exhales, realizing how much her arms are shaking and how deep her nails are digging into the skin to stop it. Her gaze is still locked onto the damaged wall.

Vegeta must have noticed.

He has noticed that she was scared and chose to leave. Why?

It bugs her. It irritates her. Is he giving up on her already?

There's only one way to find out and the idea it's not pretty at all. One side of her tells her to let it go, that's for the better. It only shows that her theories were nothing but pies in the sky.

However, she is a scientist. A prideful woman and on top of all a persistent bitch.

"Wait!" It's hateful and wrong, and she's falling in the trap of the Gods, but she follows him and it can't be undone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to thank [Ruthlesscupcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruthlesscupcake/) and [ni21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ni21) for their stunning and precious help. I feel blessed to know people like you, so supportive and smart! I mean, wow, you guys are amazing.
> 
> Also _all_ the guys of the Vegebulocracy server, which in the past months have become like a fam to me. Also you, yes, the one who's reading/leaving a comment in this moment. Thank you for giving me this much inspiration!


	5. Nothing in the Tale

That unnerving earthling is walking briskly behind him. “I said wait, are you deaf?” She almost chokes asking the question, can't she see that even her lungs are trying to sabotage her in the hopes to shut her up?

He picks up the pace, delivering a gruntled “I wish” as a response. Why is she so fucking stubborn? Wasn’t she trembling just a moment ago? 

“Ugh, that was lame.” She is gasping, can’t catch up with him but is still trying to get his attention with pathetic barbs. Much like Guldo, only with less eyes. “Anyways, I just want a short truce. So if you stopped just for a second-”

“This is already a truce, woman. A truce made of you earthlings _ not breathing my air._” 

“Why, sorry for polluting your royal oxygen but you’re the_ invader _and I lived here before you.”

“This universe doesn’t work on a first come, first served basis.”

The air chills in an instant. She drops the tedious squawking and the sound of her footfall dies out abruptly. He’s not so curious as to wonder why, because whatever the reason was, led to a good riddance. His path would have continued in a straight line toward the nearest desert if she didn’t shout “You need me!” at the top of her lungs.

No, it’s not curiosity that makes his skin itch to the point that he turns in her direction. An eyebrow quirks on his forehead and his voice is chilly and tinted with sarcasm when the words finally thumble off his tongue “I need you?”

“Yes.” She confirms, and all the while her body appears tense, her mouth is smiling… no, _ smirking at him _ that she’s got him. Now he turns completely, she has piqued his interest.

“And you know that! That‘s the reason this planet is still in one-piece. You can boss us around as much as you want, but the truth is, Vegeta… that you’re _ trapped _ here. I’ve seen how strong you are, and I know you could destroy the Earth. But you just _ can’t. _A faux pas would kill you too and you don’t want to die before turning into a Super Saiyan… you could escape but the technology you need to travel to another planet is here, in my house, and you know that you won’t find it anywhere else. That’s why your threats are empty, that’s why you turn away, that’s why… you’re even putting up with me. Tell me if I am wrong.”

Now he’s the one tensing up, her words wiped away the smug curve threatening to dawn on his mouth. He’s baring his teeth, hard, behind thinning lips. 

“I knew you were no fool, just a fool would negate the evidence.” She goes on, seeming unaffected by the rising venom in his gaze. “But I need you too. In the end I’m a captive as much as you are, until the threat of the androids will cease to exist, there won’t be freedom for either one of us. That’s why I want a truce, a real truce between us.”

“To what end?” The wariness in his voice sounds overcharged even to him, he knew this was bound to happen sooner or later and there’s a side of him who’s bark-laughing at the absurdity of it all, a weakling threatening him. She’s a twig he could break between two fingers, but is trying to blackmail _ him, _Vegeta, the prince of all Saiyans. Either she is really out of her mind or extremely courageous.

“To my end and yours. I’m fine with making the most out of a situation, in this case we’re _ temporarily _fighting against a common enemy… and I’m obviously not talking about the androids, why would you even give a damn? I mean… captivity. I want freedom, you want the Super Saiyan just to stick one up Son’s ass - pardon my French - and leave this planet, right? I can give you my knowledge in exchange of yours.”

He cannot argue with that. The way this woman thinks strangely resonates with his and he can’t tell if she’s trying to trick him into believing so or if her offer is genuine. But he doesn’t care. She’s not trying to make him an ally, rather, she’s openly admitting that she wants to use him as long as she can and… he’s fine with that. If the one saying those words had been Kakarot or his spawn he would have killed them on the spot. However… this woman… doesn’t represent a threat. 

Slowly, his mouth upturns, matching her debauched lips. “And what is the knowledge you want from me?” 

—

Oh my God, it worked. She cannot believe it’s working. Inside, she’s literally screaming and fangirling at her genius and many tiny hers are handshaking enthusiastically because her plan worked. Outside, she must keep a calm and rational front. He’s not trying to kill her, he didn’t even react as she expected - at first, she really thought he was going to bust a blood vessel - but look at him! Stance slightly taken aback but still gloriously straight, inched just a bit forward to give the alpha male impression like ‘nope, you’re not stepping over me, missy’ oh, but she will. She will and he won’t even know it. And he’s smirking at her, smirking like he does when he’s ready to wipe the floor with someone’s ass and is confident enough to win. She’s seen that smirk, that’s the exact one he wore on Namek against that ugly toad before putting a hole in his chest. So she can’t tell if it’s a bad or good sign, but will hope and pray for the latter.

“I’ll give you the exclusive ownership of the Capsule Corporation’s spacecraft to go into deep space and retrieve a regen tank for me.” There’s no doubt in her voice, it trails out determined, knowing perfectly he has no other option than to agree. Bulma feels even bold enough to relax her body and walk over towards Vegeta, crossing her arms in front of her chest to mock him a bit. But all her bravado withers away when that smirk erodes altogether. He’s back looking at her like before, as if she was a useless piece of crap.

“You are crazy,” he opines, and the way he says that chips off a bit of her pride. But she shrugs, feigning disinterest in his biting comeback. 

“Vegeta, you have been there, you know the ins and outs of that place… Frieza’s hut, which I bet now is no more than a phantom ship led by lost, weak boys. How long would it take? Namek was just 48 light years away from here, we can reach that place in less than a week now. Give me the coordinates of planet Cold and I’ll send you there in half of the time. You have something to lose? I still need time to fix the Gravity Chamber and this time it won’t be exactly a stroll in the park since_ you damaged _the motherboard, while the spaceship needs just a few adjustments. I get materials and you go blow off some steam, cut off heads and… well… whatever floats your boat.”

She can tell he’s overworking his brain and assessing if what she just said could truly benefit him in any way because he’s looking at her but not looking at her. His profound gaze is set on a target but he’s watching beyond and… she’s befuddled by herself when a tiny part of her mind echoes that she likes his thinking face. Actually, his whole range of expressions isn’t bad at all and an imaginary alarm goes off at the same time in her fantasizing synapsys. Code Red. This is a one-way ticket to his bed and she isn’t sure of wanting to conceive a baby just because she became aware of Vegeta’s random charms. So she takes a step back in a superstitious way in the hope to fend off unneeded saiyan pheromones.

“7045XZ.” Vegeta expression doesn’t change one iota when he blurts out that string of numbers. He’s just back really staring at her. He doesn’t drop his guard but neither is he looking down on her.

Upon recognizing immediately what those numbers are, her eyes widen and her heart threatens to explode in her chest… she doesn’t remember the last time she’s been so excited for something.

Coordinates. Those are coordinates!

Bulma doesn’t move, she can’t do anything because her brain is still processing what’s happening and as fast as it is, this time, it can’t really connect with her auditory system at a decent pace. 

“You have two hours.” His majesty says, unimpressed. And again, as many other times before, like a thespian at the end of a play he turns his back to her and takes off.

\---

_ Finished_. Sweat beads her forehead and she wipes it away, satisfied. Functionality of the vertical stabilizer: check. Busters: check. Fuel: check. Fuselage: check. She has run all the tests properly and the spaceship is as good as new. The watch on her wrist marks 11 pm. Right on time. 

Without even bothering to strip off of her lab coat, Bulma frets outside headed to the large expanse that forms Capsule Corporation gardens. However, the blurred silhouette she parses in her peripheral vision just out of the main door, half-immersed in the shadows, nails her on the spot. 

"Vegeta!" she almost shouts, turning over surprised. Scowl in place, he leans against the front wall, barely even tipping his head in half a nod.

"Have you been…" eyelids flutter, "waiting here all the time?" 

In reaction the saiyan just moves his gaze inside the building as if searching for something.

"Gotcha. Follow me." She encourages.

Vegeta doesn't say a word the entire way, following her as _ meek _ as whatever-other-person-that-is-not-him would. It feels like winning over the trust of a wild animal; a strange sense of accomplishment washes over your body but at the same time you walk jerkily because tension won't leave you as if the creature could pounce on you at any moment.

It happened a couple of times already, that he'd silently follow her around like a newborn duckling. Her eyes roll skyward trying to figure out the reason. Maybe it's her timbre? The way she confronts him? _ Mhhh… _

From time to time, she tries to steal quick glances over her shoulder noticing that the man keeps staring at the ground as if deep in thought. Dying to test his focus, her hand snakes in the upper pocket of her lab coat, producing a capsule case that she carelessly throws behind her back.

He catches the little box and doesn't even look up. 

"Food, three battlesuits, fuel, a portable house and an empty dynocap are all stored in there. The latter will serve as a container for the regentank. In order to demolecularize it, you just press the button on top twice instead of once."

"Why?" 

His query was unexpected. "What?" 

Vegeta is almost annoyed when he replies "Why are you giving me this?"

Legit question. She doesn't quite trust him yet, and obviously he doesn't trust her at all. So why should she provide him meals, fuel and even a change of clothes perfectly knowing he could just take off and never come back?

"I trust my gut." Oh God, she sounds like Son. But it's because of Son that she took Vegeta under her wing. And also… because she's curious, hopelessly curious to know if her theories will bear fruit or not. Once again, she can't help but turn over her shoulder, this time she catches the saiyan's judgemental stare. The corners of his mouth are upturned, but her focus is set on dimples she hadn't noticed before.

"You're naive." That's all he offers, dipping his head in a menacing way.

"Maybe, but _so are you_." She laughs, ignoring his growled 'what?' 

She's not stupid and if Vegeta is as cunning as she thinks he is, he'll find out soon enough during his trip.

\---

Just half an hour later the spaceship takes off in the sky. The wind produced by the propulsion whips at her curly hair. Bulma pushes back a wild strand behind her ear and burrows in her lab coat. With her nose up in the air she grins at the smoky trail the contraption has left behind.

"I'll be waiting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, a special thanks goes to **Ruthlesscupcake** and **Ni21** for their precious help!  

> 
> I'd really appreciate if you left a comment in the section below. :) I love to interact with my readers!


	6. Butterfly of Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, sorry for the late update! But I had quite the issue with this one. It was kinda hard to pull out from my brain 😩 that said, I'd like to point out that while reading this fic you might find details/references that don't correspond to the English dubbed version of the anime; that is because I follow the subbed version and base most of the events on the manga (so many dialogues are completely different.) Just a heads up for those who don't read the manga/are more acquainted with the dubbed version of the anime! 
> 
> Enjoy your reading 💪 and feel free to leave your impressions in the comment section if you want!

_ ‘Error’ _ is the only word that keeps flashing, red, followed by an irregular and irritating beep on the display in front of him. Vegeta smirks at it but the hardness in his jaw clashes with the entertained curve on his lips. His gloved fingers tap a few times on the flat keyboard producing a command prompt. That woman… she must have made sure that he does _ not _ reroute his course from the coordinates she put in. The system reveals just a string of code, which, he assumes, is basically an open invitation for him to try and find a way to solve the puzzle she has created. 

Scowling, he steps away from the control panel, ignoring her blatant poor challenge. Using the spiral flight of steps at the center of the spacecraft he reaches the lower level. 

The echo of boots on metal is the only other sound accompanying him while he reaches a wide porthole. Beyond it, the redundant landscape of a nighttime sky is a sight he has seen too many times in his life. And just as the view in front of him changes, he is reminded of the mockery that his tables have also turned. Coming to terms with the Earthlings was a mistake. He should have wiped them off the face of the universe. Like it should have happened with the Colds.

Stygian pupils imperceptibly thin, lids squint half-mast like sharp blades. It's the second time he has allowed impulses to control his choices.

Fingers curl inwards and both palms tighten in a fist.

It was like this with Frieza too. Whereas his pusillanimous father failed, he believed he could win. Whereas the man that wiped off the Tsufuru race kneeled, he’d raised his chin and defied their captor. However, facts showed just how identical, in the end, he and the King were. And between the both of them, he was the one who ended up kneeling in the dust for the lizard, bowing so low that if he had inched a bit more downward, he’d kiss the ground. Now, for the second time, believing he had an eye on things had led him to make a deal with a human. A female earthling whose combat level could compete with a fucking insect. How could he have sunk this low? 

A rumble leaves his lips as he lets loose the power he was keeping steadily balanced just below the diaphragm. It expands slowly, filling nerves and muscles with new cells and burning old ones just as fast as breathing, pushing up flesh and forming new bridges between tendons and bones. 

When his eyes finally droop shut in concentration, the ghost of the Super Saiyan taints the back of his lids. He sees himself bathed in gold, but he doesn't feel it. The power Kakarot exuded that day was pure, undaunted _ control. _ He was able to perceive it just for a moment, but the unimaginable battle power that rippled in the air was raw, portentous. Higher than Frieza's, actually, _ much higher_.

He hates that for a split second he even felt proud. Proud of his race. 

Why then? Why isn't he able to break his limits? What is it that unleashed such a raging force in the likes of Kakarot? He doesn't understand. He wants to understand! 

What…

What is it…

**"What is it that he has that I don't?!" **White-hot fury leaves his limbs at once, lightening the darkness around like a star in thermal runaway. 

But it's not the Super Saiyan. It's _ never _the Super Saiyan for him.

\---

It's been twenty-four hours since Vegeta tried to hack into the server to change his destination. However, the prick hasn't tried again. 

Looks like he's not interested in her challenge and that thought irks her a bit. _ Just a bit. _

In the end, Bulma ended up spending the night in the gravity room, half working on patching the console up and half staring at the desktop like a schoolgirl waiting for her crush to text her back. Ugh. 

She just can't accept that Vegeta blatantly ignored her instructions. Now she can't keep tabs on the Prince. And as she lies spread eagled on the checkered floor of her dad's invention she is reminded of how long she has been in here. She smells, hasn't come out of that lab coat for two days straight. Her hair feels gross and sleepiness threatens to put her down. But Bulma feels good. As good as she hasn’t felt in a while. The thought of leading a mission sparked an old fire in her, the thought of being useful, of having to solve a puzzle greater than her, keeps the scientist alert even if her body feels like a wreck. 

There are too many scratches on the ceiling of the gravity room. Old metallic scars she's never noticed before. Suddenly, the room looks like a big cage. She can almost feel it and closing her eyes she does, “_Vegeta_...”. His desperation, his will to survive, fight, show how great he is. She has watched him for the longest time. Across a screen, yes, like a zoo surveyor that feeds and takes care of a wounded tiger kept in captivity… she thinks she might be the only one - here - knowing him.

Food preference. He has none. You could feed him a person or a beast and he'd see no difference. This says a lot about him. He might, _ might, _have had to adapt to harsh conditions in order to survive. So, he's not picky when it comes to food. Saiyans always eat as if they'd been starving for ages. All of them. They lose an unimaginable quantity of energy when they fight. Hopefully, Vegeta will wear the new battlesuit she has made for him. The microtubules interwoven in it allow minimal dispensation of energy, re-injecting ki when it's discharged in the form of mini electrostimulation. 

She'd have explained it to that asshole, if he didn't make ignoring her, his past-time. That's why she concocted a puzzle game he has to solve. He's not going to use her tech unless he collaborates.

Bulma nods at herself, smirking like a naughty child at the imaginary scoff of Vegeta. Then, she takes a long and deep breath and schools her features into seriousness. 

The androids. Three years. They could destroy the world. The real deal seems so far away and unreal that sometimes it sounds like bullcrap. In another timeline Son died because of a heart disease. _ That _ sounds extra preposterous. Someone so strong that never contracted the barest cold… a super saiyan that dies due to arterial infection. Nice title for a comic. Son has lived on the Earth for the longest time, there's nothing so strong on _ this planet _that could affect him so.

Could it be a sort of collateral effect of the Super Saiyan transformation? Instead of a virus, could it be an excessive strain of the muscle? If not, where did he contract it? Namek? The other planet… what did he call it… Yardrat? 

She rolls side to side, now in a fetal position. There's too much on her mind. She must discard some information, or else her head will implode.

"Ok!" Hopping back to a sitting position, Bulma slaps both her hands on her cheeks twice. She crawls back under the console, grabbing a few short-circuited wires. "Now, back to you big baby."

\---

He cannot train in this condition. He's too light, there's no strain on the body. Every blow that cuts the air feels pointless. He's barely even sweating. His upper lip twitches, disgusted, because the thought of wanting to reach planet Cold as fast as possible has _ really _ just crossed his mind. 

The woman believes he knows the place. What a joke. As if someone like Frieza or his specimen would ever let expendable cattle sully the soil of their precious homeland. It just so happened he knows the coordinates because he had planned to destroy the planet once he'd become a Super Saiyan. It took him ages in order to find out the lizard's lair. Getting what she wants won't be as easy as she thinks. Even if the Colds and Frieza's strongest troops are out of business; he's pretty sure their ancestry is anything but extinct…

_Yet._

Intermittent flecks of distant starlight cast glowplay on his growing, confident smirk. It would be _ troublesome _ if a Saiyan were to locate the nucleus of the _ most dreaded Empire _ in the Universe and burn it to ashes. And not just an _ ordinary _ Saiyan but the Prince of them all. 

Suddenly, this expedition doesn't sound as regrettable as before. The prospect of destroying the planet fills him with adrenaline. Adrenaline he needs to get out of his system immediately. Without thinking twice, the sudden rush of excitement leads Vegeta to fly upstairs, to the console. He needs _ gravity_. 

Gravity he won’t get. The saiyan freezes in front of the machine, where the black screen showing just the string of code he'd left unchecked for a whole day salutes him reminding the saiyan that there's a _ trial _ he must complete in order to get full access to the commands. He can almost hear the sound of teeth screeching in his mouth. 

_ That woman. _

She’s doing that on purpose. Underestimating him. Toying with him. Underlining again, that without her help, he can’t get nowhere. 

_ “You need me!” _

That single sentence still grates on his nerves. How dare she assume the Prince of all Saiyans might need the help of such a lowly, duplicitous creature? He can feel his blood rush in his veins, the vengeance he felt before mixed with the awareness he has been the one refusing to give her a response when she stated facts as they were. Indeed, he’ll resort to every medium in order to reach his ultimate goal. And if the medium is taking advantage of the resources she provides, then so be it. But she must _not_ and _she won’t_ _conclude _he needs _her help _or that she can play with him at her leisure!

She wants his knowledge? Good. His knowledge she will have, then.

\---

She’s hugging an electronic board like a pillow when the laptop hooked to the control panel of the GR beeps to life, notifying a new access to the system. She barely squeezes an eye open to the blurry screen, muttering to it to shut up before the heaviness of the lid forces her to close it again. However, the slow reconnection with her nervous system warns her that if she keeps sleeping sloppily on the floor, butt in the air, her back will soon break in half. Groaning and scratching her buttocks, the scientist pulls herself up in a more comfortable position, cracking even some bone in the neck with slow, circular movements. 

“Mhhh?” At first, she finds herself staring at the board in her arms, eyeing it suspiciously and throwing it gracelessly on the ground. Just after poking her ear to stop the nagging sound that’s growing nettlesome by the second, does she realize where it's coming from and why.

“What?!” Her eyes fly open as she grabs the laptop like a neck, strangling the contraption and bringing the desktop nearer, disbelieving. 

It’s not possible.

It’s a frigging lie! 

Her fingers tap fast on the keyboard, opening the black tab where she had left her encrypted message for Vegeta.

The blinking text cursor under the string of code indicates that the other user is waiting for a response to be inserted. Wait. What? Response? _ A command? _ This program isn’t supposed to _ receive commands, _ just send them… from _ her _ side. He couldn’t have messed up with her stuff so deeply now, could he? 

Experimentally, Bulma presses the spacebar once and what pops in after almost makes her fling the computer at the floor. A new encoded message shows up, it’s binary code, shorter than the her own, but mortally infuriating.

01110011 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101001 01110100 

Which simply translates as ‘_suck it._’

And just when a blue text follows up right under that, she truly understands her fatal mistake. Vegeta did_ nothing _if not just getting the gist of how this kind of language works. He didn’t hack into the system, he merely played her out by copying and pasting numbers to create a provocative message, knowing… that she’d test him just out of irritation and… insert a command. He made her activate the system from the Earth!

“You little…” her mouth crumples in a tight line, lips narrow so much they start whitening between teeth.

How could she fall for such an _ elementary _ trick? Blaming it on her sleepiness or the fact she didn’t consume her morning Cappuccino won’t make her any happier. It’s been ages, _ ages _ \- she was six at the time and the offender was her dad - since someone has attacked her pride as a scientist so straightforwardly without even trying. Perhaps, she underestimated Vegeta, or the contrary. One side of her is dying to know how he truly managed to pull that stunt, another, wants just to shut down the system and go childishly scream into a pillow. Vegeta found out her weakness and he might not even be aware of that… or yes he does… or… she doesn’t know anymore!

_ You put so much effort into crafting perfect projects that leave uncovered the most delicate part of them. Defense. Openings. _ Her father is right, perhaps the only one she overestimates, is herself. Knowing… no, _ believing _ that no other person on the planet can match her genius, she often skips on security. Until now it’s never been a problem… right, _ until now_. And it didn’t even come from a scientist, but a random alien who probably isn’t even acquainted with Earth technology! She slams the computer lid shut, getting up stiffly from the floor. At the moment a shower is in order to recollect her thoughts and cool her down. If she were to contact Vegeta, probably they’d end up squabbling and right now she doesn’t want to hear or see him. She’s wounded, wounded by her own little games. What a genius!

It’s five in the morning and it’s foggy outside, spring is still at its dawn and dew musses sparkling grass. Cold seeps into her bones, reminding her she hasn’t slept enough and, as she stalks towards the main compound of capsule corporation, she can’t ignore the increasing heart race in her chest. There are too many emotions swelling within and it’s difficult to sort them out. Anger is the prominent one, but a slight sense of… longing accompanies it too. It’s a hunger for that thrill that just a few moments ago has sparked something new in her. Failure isn’t a word she is acquainted with, it happens so rarely that she finds sudden bumps on her road paved of accomplishments, that when it happens, it takes a while for her to accept it. And she knows herself, she won’t accept this so easily, not from him. Not from Vegeta, who was supposed to be cunning but not_ this smart. _And the fact he showed that he can undo her whenever he wants, with little effort… irks and fascinates her at the same time.

It’s scary, this attraction and she’s starting to see a pattern in her behavior, a pattern that will become harder and harder to fight off. She doesn’t want to change things as they are. She… doesn’t… want a fucking alien baby in her belly. She doesn’t want to let her friends fight against the Androids but... looks like fate doesn’t give a damn of what she wants.

She breathes in, slowly. Knuckles whitens as she clenches her fists hard against her sides. _ I’m angry, not scared. I just need a shower, a comfortable bed and some food in me. _

\---

Calloused fingers crush a jumble of short-circuiting wires in the palm, they zap and tick, until what’s left of them is just smoke. This technology is not as efficient as the one Vegeta has been provided with on the Earth, however it was enough to tame his rising vehemence. Strips of burned cloth hang haphazardly on what remains of his training gear and in the silence of the dark room every intake of wheezy breath follows the cadence of the buzzing gravity slowly lowering to zero. Slowly, tension drains from his body.

According to the spaceship’s timestamp, there are still four days left before the landing. Enough time for his sight to adapt to obscurity, which will be essential to move around Coldsei. He has faint recollections of Dodoria babbling about Frieza’s peculiar versatility to various degrees of light despite being born on a planet completely lacking it. 

He scrunches his eyes, trying to detect the capsule-box the woman had handed to him before his departure. It should contain provisions. 

While such an information might have been an exaggeration on his account or just another way to make subordinates piss themself more than they already did, he must include every contingency as possible knowing nothing about the ground he’s going to step on.

He finds the container on the control panel, after retracing-back his steps upstairs. Inside are five safely stored capsules labeled by numbers. There’s something scribbled on top of each of them, written in what he assumes is archaic Earthling language. It is basically useless to try communicate with him in anything other than galactic standard.

Whilst he could casually just drop all of them on the ground, if by any chance the abode the woman mentioned were to materialize in a narrow space like this, it would create problems. He remembers she listed the item as fourth, which makes the first three capsules all he needs. He drops the first on the ground, which produces the battlesuits.

Vegeta arches a brow, picking one up and denoting the close resemblance to the P.T.O’s gears. Materials look similar as well, but lighter on the breastplate and sturdier where should be pauldrons.

Not that it matters. 

He strips down easily from the tattered training attire, throwing it on the floor behind him. 

“Ok, now I need to know how the heck you did that. Tell me!” The ringing, detestable voice he thought he would be spared from hearing for a least a week suddenly fills the silence, sending a jolt of irritation and surprise up his spinal cord. Vegeta struggles not to just fire a ki blast at the desktop that’s now showing a grandangular shot of the woman in question in his peripheral vision. 

“And don’t tell me you’re asleep dude, ‘cause I don’t give a damn. Wake up!” 

She evidently has not noticed his presence in the room due to the lack of lighting, so he just ignores her, going on with his ministrations.

“Vegeta!”

But she’s obstinate and annoying and he has not forgotten that. “_I _ don’t _ need _ to tell you anything” he mocks, “So we can end this conversation before it starts.”

“Oh so you’re there after all. Hey boy, let me remind you that you’re in the middle of the universe with _ my spaceship_. I wouldn’t act so high and mighty if I were you.” Her mouth scrunches in a daring smile but he doesn’t give the slightest fuck.

“Your threats are as poor as your control on this machine.” He reminds her, “else you wouldn’t _ need _ to know.”

She disappears from the screen for a while, leaving him interdicted. When she comes back an evident forced smile pulls awkwardly upward the angles of her mouth.

“Ok, we started this off in the wrong way. I’m not here to fight, see? I’m calm and collected.” She indicates her stiff features, “I was joking. Actually, I need you to listen to me. And switch on the damn lights for God’s sake! I wish to look a person in the face when I speak to them.”

“I am training my sight, that’s out of the question. Keep it short and leave me alone, you’re wasting my time.”

“Ugh- I… swear- fine. No! It’s not fine at all! Hear me out there, Mr. _ you’re wasting my time, _you’re the one complicating things with your snarky remarks. I’m busy too, actually, I’ve been busy all night long because you had nothing better to do than go ballistic against a control panel! Hellooo, I’m working my ass off to patch up your shiit, remember? No GR, no training and bla bla bla… got it? Anyways, I take it you have not tried on the suit I gave you yet, if you had, you’d have noticed I had installed a communication device there, on the inside of the right wrist.”

Since the suit is still in his hand, Vegeta flips the sleeve facing upwards, testing the fabric but finding nothing in there.

“I don’t care, we won’t need to communicate anymore after today.”

“Yeah sure, you go to planet Cold and I don’t get to see it. In your dreams, saiyan. _ Anyways, _the device is inbuilt in the fabric, so to access it you just have to tap on your wrist. Isn’t it convenient? So it won’t get in the way when you fistfight with the bad guys… or good guys, whatever they are. I also-- oh fuck it, I can’t really talk to a black screen!”

It’s too late when Vegeta understands what she wants to do. Lights switch on, screwing up all his efforts. When he turns over to her, annoyed, the earthling seems to have miraculously lost her tall talk. 

“Oh,” she says, her eyes dart sideways, “you have it-”

“I told you not to-”

“Ok. Bye. Night.” 

The connection blinks shut and he just keeps standing there, staring at the screen, flabbergasted. 

What the fuck is wrong with humans?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super big shout out as usual goes to [Ruthlesscupcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruthlesscupcake/) and [ni21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ni21) for providing quick troubleshooting and essential insight. You guys are amazing.
> 
> Thanks also to all those who continue to support my ramblings and this fic. ❤✌


	7. Absent Dreams

It's been a couple days since their last interaction and Bulma is growing annoyed by her own pusillanimity. After shutting down the connection in his face, that night, her mind has been flooded with cut-outs of southern saiyan parts mixed with her stupid, unwarranted reaction. That's why she is ashamed and can't get in touch with Vegeta. It's not as if she's never seen a naked man in her life. It was merely _ unexpected_. 

"Ok you're angry at the cheeseburger, but do you mind if I interrupt the staring contest for a second and get you to look at me instead?"

"Uh? Oh. Right. Sorry Yamcha… you were saying…" 

Judging from the long ensuing pause and those slightly quirked brows, she can tell he's been talking for a while. As a response, she tries to buy him with her best charming smile. However, it doesn't work. Yamcha holds on his poker face like a pro.

So she squints her eyes a bit while her head sinks into her shoulders like that of a scolded kid. "Yeah, I wasn't listening." 

“I noticed.” He purses his lips but relaxes them a second later and falling back on his chair lets out a pliable sigh. “I asked you if I can stay here for a while since the blowhard is out of the way.”

“Seriously, now… _ blowhard?_ Cattle calling the pot black much?”

“You daresay I’m as obnoxious as him?” 

“Nah, gotta train harder to reach that level.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Suddenly, his black gaze seems sharper, set on something she cannot parse but that seems very important. 

Oh, right. Must be it. “You’re jealous.” She reiterates, suddenly picking up from where Oolong left before Frieza’s arrival.

“Who, me? Oh, please.” He scoffs, waving her dismissively as if she had just told a joke.

“Really?” Leaning in to rest her chin on the back of her hand, Bulma reaches the straw popping out from her empty can of Cola, drawing what remains of the liquid with a sharp suck. “Then you’re contradicting your previous statement.”

“_That _ has nothing to do with you.”

“_I _never implied this whole conversation had anything to do with me.” It’s far too easy to knock the pieces off the board with Yamcha, especially when he plays the part of the uncaring partner like this. She can feel the tension hanging between them even if he’s trying to avoid her gaze. 

“Listen,” he nervously cards a hand in his hair, until it falls on his face so that he can massage his eyes. “I’m not jealous, actually, just uncomfortable knowing that a serial murderer lives under your same roof… someone who, just a few years ago proclaimed he wanted to wipe out the human race from the universe can’t be trusted. And I still don’t understand what’s going on in your or Goku’s head for wanting to give him a chance. I don’t know but…” he’s full of sighs today, and she doesn’t understand why “... trust your slaphappy judgement. I mean,” now his hands fall on his lap and raise again, grabbing the corners of the table, fingers drum on it nervously, “if you managed to keep that Saiyan from going apeshit on the planet until now, guess there’s no need for me to worry. Or need for me at all.” That chuckling of his is apprehensive as his eyes go downcast.

This is… new. Yamcha is hardly ever open like this and never this low spirited. It might be just her impression, but he sounds so… dejected. That feeling transfers to her like an invisible tattoo, but takes a new form, morphing into anxiety. For a second she fears he might know what’s passing through her mind. It scares her. “This isn’t like you!” She stands up abruptly, banging both hands on the table. _ Another unwarranted reaction. _

Yamcha looks up in her direction, befuddled. “What do you-”

“I mean exactly what I _ said_. You want to move in to Capsule Corporation to train right? So I assume your goal is to take on those cyber maniacs with all you’ve got.”

“Y-yes I-”

“So what’s with this pitiful drama? To me, you just sounded like someone ready to give up. And that someone is not the pompous, hyper-self-confident Yamcha I know. Vegeta and Son are Saiyans, it’s normal that they’re stronger than you. But what of it? Who cares? Did you see Tien or Krillin or even that ugly ass Piccolo complain? No. On the contrary, they want to fight to the death. And you agreed because like them, you’ve got a loose screw. Do I have to remind you, of your lines?”

Yamcha blinks once, twice and then… starts to laugh. Laughs so hard tears are filling the corners of his eyes and Bulma doesn’t know if she should feel affronted or relieved by his reaction.

“No... _ no_. I remember.” He wipes off his eyes but doesn’t stop trembling with laughter.

“Better you do, lad. Because if you wanted to turn tails you should have done that when I suggested to destroy Gero’s lab in advance. But will you fighting maniacs ever listen to me? Yeah, in another lifetime maybe.”

“Roger that, ma’am. When can I move in?”

“Whenever you want.” She winks. “Capsule Corporation is your home as much as is mine.”

\--

The door of the bedroom cracks shut behind Bulma and stilling in front of it, she exhales an exhausted sigh. _ That was close. _ She came so close to blurting out her speculations about the future in Yamcha’s face. Something is shaking within her, the same sensation of _ wrongness _ that never left her for the past few weeks. Hearing out loud words like ‘ _ I’m not needed’ _ from a man who’d rather swallow insecurities behind a smile, has been a hard blow to her waffling convictions. Suddenly, the certainty symbolized by that man was shattered in front of her eyes by a mere sentence. In her eyes, or more like to her ears… in that moment he wasn’t questioning his strength but the stability of _ their _relationship. And he didn’t even look her in the eyes while doing so. For that reason, she believes he must have detected something and that something, she’s sure, is all about Vegeta and Vegeta alone.

So she thought about spilling out the truth to him, she really was about to. Just consideration for what has yet to come stopped her. This isn’t the right moment. Not now, not later. At this very stage there’s much more at stake than frivolous emotions. Their lives. She doesn’t want to be in the way when he’s even losing faith in his will to fight. Yamcha never lost faith. Or at least, he always kept up a front that didn’t allow people to see it. But today, today he was naked. All his pride dried out and every emotion was stripped bare in front of her.

Why else would he take advantage of the absence of Vegeta to pitch at Capsule Corporation when he could be off training on his own for the sake of physical and mental improvement to fight the Androids at his 100%? What is he trying to prove? Is he truly convinced that she’d leave him for an_ alien _ just because he’s living there? No, that mustn’t be it. He knows better than to question their relationship because of baseless pindaric flights.

Her naked back slides down the door, until she's sitting on the floor and hugging her legs. It's difficult. She nuzzles her head against the cold surface and tilts it upward, sighing. "Yo Mr. God, here I am, a super sexy 25-years-old woman" she can lie to deities, they wouldn't care if she adds four or five years to her lifespan, sighing her woes at the ceiling like a problematic child and waiting for the impending storm to just hit her. “So if you have to do your thing strike now, like, put a baby in me and let's skip all the technicalities, ok?" She’s also dripping with bitter sarcasm. 

Her holo-watch saves her from further degrade when the trashy ringtone announces an incoming call.

A tap on the wrist and the smiling face of Tights pops up, warning Bulma she’s up to something without her uttering a word.

“Hiya Bulma. Howdy?” 

Bulma snorts and rolls her eyes, “yeah, yeah, get to the point.” 

“Aw, so cold! Can’t you be a little cuter with your big sis?” Her pouty face is so fake that the scientist can literally see her mirrored in the blond kin.

“Nope. Not up to it. What do you need?”

“Can’t win you over, uh? I called to ask you for new spicy info about those androids-”

“I don’t know much- just about what that guy… hey! How do you know about this? You sugar talked dad into telling you? I swear I’m going to staple that man’s mouth shut!”

“Damn, you’re in a super bad mood. What happened? You can tell me.” Tights winks, like their mother, and that expression doesn't suit her one bit.

“Yup, and end up in your next novel under the name of Jenna Turner. No thanks.”

“I don’t write romance novels!”

“That’s what scares me.”

“Oh so you’re seeing some alien or stuff? Care to describe him-”

“Pack it in!” 

“For reals, though, I just called to check up on you - while hoping to squeeze some juicy information out of your cherry mouth - it’s been so long.” Tights is sitting on a swivel chair, Bulma can tell by the way she swings her body right and left. Which means she went back to Omori; she always goes there when she gets writer blocks.

“Ok, so, hypothetically speaking…” she doesn’t know why she’s doing this, after all, Tights is the last person on the planet she’d want to vent to, but she’s also the only person available that’s not part of this tangled maze of bad choices. “What would you do if someday, someone you don’t know walked up to you and told you that the future of the world depends on a choice? A choice you have to make?” She got up at some point, walking toward her bed and letting her body fall dead weight on the mattress. 

“Uhm, is this _ hypothetical world _ going to explode if I don’t pick the right option?”

“Yes and no. You don’t know that, it’s just speculation.”

“Oh, okay. What are the odds then?”

“It’d change your life in more ways than one, you’re not sure if for good or worse.” Bulma face tightens a bit.

“Blue or red pill-like?” Tights ventures.

“Pretty much.”

“Woah. If I had to pick on a whim I’d choose the red one just out of curiosity, but probably, If I had time to think it over… I would definitely stay where I am. Changes happen every day but giving up on everything you’ve built so far to hop into some dark hole it’s scary. Would you change your life for the good of mankind?” 

The good of mankind sounds so exaggerated but if one chains the events that would inevitably collapse if she ignored her inner voice, well, that could describe the situation well.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Bulma replies, honestly. “As much I’d be concerned, eventually, I would rather try to find a way out that doesn’t jeopardise my little world. That’s why I’ve always been the sidekick and not the hero in the story of my life.”

“I’d rather label you a _ plot device_. Pretty scientist with a super IQ sounds like a pocket Deus Ex Machina.” 

“Oh why, thank you. Now I feel relieved to know my only purpose in life up ‘till now was getting pregnant.”

“Wait, wait, wait, what? Pregnant? Are you expecting a baby, Bulma?!”

Oh... damn, she really screwed up this one. “No! _ Of course not. _I just got randomly historical. It was an example.”

“And here I thought Mr. Yamcha had finally hit a homerun.” Tights sounds both sarcastic and dreamy, but Bulma knows she's just mocking her.

“I’m almost thirty sweetie, that happened aeons ago. _You're_ the virgin. Anyway, going back on topic, what if… you tried to make up your mind and wanted to really choose the blue pill but the red pill haunts you?”

“Sorry for being a virgin. Is the red pill handsome?”

“We’re not talking about men!” Well, sorta. “Be serious.”

“Well,” Tights scratches her chin, “That might mean that I’m not really satisfied with my current life as I thought I was.”

Bulma drops face first into the pillow, “That’s exactly what I’m scared about.” It’s just a whisper, and Tights doesn’t catch it, but doesn’t really matter. Her sister’s voice is muffled under the cushion together with her arm now and her questioning grows afar.

After a while, Bulma falls asleep and her dreams aren’t as nice as she would like them to be.

\---

He hasn’t slept for days and is starting to feel the toll on the weight that’s crushing him on the ground. Bathed in his own sweat and cheek flattened on the cold surface, he’s reached his limits. Knowing this just pumps further anger in his strained body. Fingers dig into the floor, gutting the immaculate tiles until concrete spills out from the streaks and blood from his splintered nails.

He has no time for this. He has no time for struggling to stand up when he should be standing at the top. His marred back curves as he pushes up, fighting against gravity. Nerves break in his arms, but the sensation of quick regeneration fills him immediately after. 

That's when the spaceship tilts abruptly, sending him flat on the floor again. The gravity feels heavier than before and knocks the air out of his lungs. Black eyebrows furrow, teeth grit. 

_ What the hell is going on? _

Another shake, lights switch on and off and numbers fly up on the control panel, 350g suddenly rises to 600. Vegeta lets out a pained snarl, he can feel his ribcage give out under the intense pressure. Alarms start to blare all around but he's starting to lose consciousness. No matter how hard he tries, his muscles won't move.

"Vegeta!" A voice. It's broken and distant, but he can recognize it. Black irises slowly move towards the source of the sound from underneath half mast lids. A little, intermittent holographic window is hovering from beneath his wrist. 

Her face is miserable. Worried. Horrified. Angry.

"M...e...teor shower." He can barely say anything and this irks him. 

"Yes." She's trying to reign in her pitch, schooling her features to appear calm and collected. "That's not the problem though," she fiddles with something, commands probably, "I need you to get on your feet and reach the command prompt ASAP. The spaceship entered a strong magnetic field which is messing up the controls. It could be a black hole Vegeta. I'll be trying to keep the gravity at bay on my end."

He doesn't need _ her _to tell him. He was already concentrating as much ki as possible in order to redirect the flow toward his arms, right now what he needs the most is a leeway on the upper side of his body. However, his fingers won't move. Even just keeping his eyes open is proving to be a challenge. 

"Can you do it Vegeta?" It's almost _ comical _how the earthling is struggling to keep her timbre leveled as if she were trying to sound commanding. Her breathing intake is shallower than his, he can almost feel her pulse skyrocket via ether.

"Who do you think… you're talking to, earthling woman?" He tries to wrinkle his nose in a distasteful grimace, but he cannot. 

"To the obnoxious _Prince of all Saiyans_, of course. Get that super ass over there your majesty, because we don't have the Dragon balls this time."


	8. The Missing Flame

Fingers have never moved so fast on a keyboard before, whilst multiple tabs pop up at once and her eyes follow, with a maniacal focus, each string of code. Of all the days, this isn't what she needed today. As if it was not already enough, with the life threat hanging over their heads. A black hole, _ seriously_? 

As she taps inputs, for the umpteenth time, bile rises up in her throat. She forces it back down, gritting her teeth and steadying her trembling arms, when she glimpses the image of Vegeta from the peripheral of her eye. He is striving to stand on his feet, under that much force of gravity. Every inch of his body seems ready to collapse again at any moment, but he looks in control. The mask of utter determination on his face, prompts her to give her best, to not surrender to panic. To keep a cool head. 

"As soon as you reach the control panel," she straightens up her back, "start to pull down the lever you see on your immediate right. When I tell you to, push the green and blue button at the same time." 

Vegeta doesn't let out any response, the only sounds she can hear, is his ragged breathing. His steps are heavy and dragged, but still, even though the ship is shaking he managed to climb upstairs. She can't help but silently pray, that strength doesn't leave his body. If he were to die, for such a stupid happenstance, if he were to lose his life because of her egotistical request, she'll never forgive herself. Not when he's so close to his goal. Not when the proof of that man's immense tenacity, hangs overhead in the form of scratches on the ceiling. _ If we escape this, _ she swears to nobody but herself, _ I'm going to enable you with any means I have. You'll reach the Super Saiyan, Vegeta. This is a promise._

The oath echoes in the back of her mind together with a grunt, her eyes snap back on the lateral screen as the images on it flicker on and off. Until the light shuts down, concealing the prince from her sight. Her frantic typing comes to an abrupt stop. All she can do now is stare wide-eyed at the blank desktop, too scared to call out to him. Her tongue feels knotted. A side of her wants to scream, while another tells her to shut the fuck up. As used to as she is to Son's near-death stunts, wherein the end he always manages to come out unscathed, it is easy to fall into the trap and think that Vegeta possesses the same luck. How... must she behave now? Her lips move slowly, starting to mouth out his name… but before she can voice anything, the brightest, blinding light she's ever seen, lights up the blackened screen. So dazzling that she has to cover her eyes. 

Even if she can't see, Vegeta's battle cry is enough to let her breathe again. Goosebumps fill her back, and a moment later she's springing on the edge of her seat; almost climbing on the control panel, full of expectation. Something drops in her belly though, when she notices flames of white licking at Vegeta's frame. 

It's not the Super Saiyan. There's no gold dripping from his hair or embracing his frame. And it's not disappointment that she feels, she's sure of it. It's more, something much more akin to anger. Because she cannot understand why… Why the man that's standing in all his glory in that spaceship, wheezing, yes, but still as menacing as a war machine, isn't bathed in gold. She doesn't know where this much empathy comes from, nor why she's clamping her fists so tight. "Now!" She shouts it at the top of her lungs, and Vegeta is fast as a whirlwind, when he kicks off towards the commands, and presses the switches. Bulma stands up abruptly from her seat, a mix of excitement and fear gnawing at her gut.

The spacecraft slants and shakes, the hull screeches against something for a few seconds then clanks loudly. Bulma feels as if she's ready to swallow her drumming heart. 

Finally, the indicator of the gravity rolls back to zero. As Vegeta drops on his knees, she sprints to her laptop to check on his vitals; nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. Impressive is, to say the least, what she sees on the diagnostic algorithm. "This kind of blood pressure would be high enough to burst a vessel in a human being…" she comments, eyes dilated in wonder. He's fine. Her shoulders finally loosen up and just at that moment- turning again towards the main screen, she notices that Vegeta's gaze is, virtually, on her. 

"Put it back in" the prince snarls, nodding at the navigator. 

Now comes the hardest part. Bulma breathes in and shakes her head. "I can't. It's already a miracle that we managed to escape the black hole. If I reroute the ship to the original coordinates, we go back to square one."

"You're useless!" He bangs his fist on the floor, she can almost feel the sizzling vitriol in his words. 

She would like to be mad at him and snap back with one of her proverbial remarks but this time, Vegeta can't be blamed. They're in a pinch because she dragged the Saiyan in this situation. Thus, instead of letting pride cloud her better judgment, Bulma pinches the bridge of her nose; trying to think fast. "I can try to find a way around the issue, but I'll need some time." 

"You already wasted enough of it, earthl-" 

The next thing Bulma sees is Vegeta swinging like broken sugarcane before falling flat on his face. "Vegeta!" She knows it's probably just exhaustion, but her voice betrays the silent vow she had made to herself, to keep a cool head no matter what. "Vegeta!" She calls again, louder, her hands now clutching at the sides of the desktop as if shaking it could prompt the Saiyan awake.

"S...shut up", his remark is weak but enough to let Bulma breathe a sigh of relief. 

"You're an idiot!" She finally snaps, in the sudden need to relieve the mounting stress. "Don't scare me like that." 

"Took you long… enough", his voice comes in an irked, low huff, "to be finally reminded of your place."

Bulma rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah _ Mr. Destroyer of worlds, now let's get you patched up."_

\--- 

When the woman expressed the will to heal him, he didn't imagine it would be by the mechanical hands of one of _ his _battle bots. The same, useless pieces of junk he's been blowing up since the old man had built the gravity chamber. One of them whirrs close to him, hovering above his head and staring at his pitiful form slumped on the ground. To say shameful is an understatement. 

Vegeta has barely turned his head when a lid on the head of one of those deleterious toasters opens up. The thing produces arms, literal metallic limbs that go up and start scavenging inside the cyber skull, pulling out wires. 

He raises the flat of his hand towards the bot.

"Stop right there Galactic Mess. Those two first aid units are the only ones you have there and unless you want to spend days with your butt in the air waiting to recover, I don't suggest you get rid of them just because you feel the urge to shoot at whatever moves, on sight." She's still there, observing him through the holographic screen with her face scrunched in a sarcastic smirk, whose savvy corners, he'd gladly pull down with a well-aimed jab. However, as much as it infuriates him, she _ might _ have got a point.

"Whatever." He manages just a snarl. He's letting the bot do its job merely because he needs to recover energy as fast as possible.

"You are surprisingly pliant under exhaustion" her unnecessary statement gooses his neck hair. Pliant? Him? She's lucky enough that he didn't destroy her pathetic planet, yet. "Just a friendly reminder," she goes on, chin in hand, "those _cute_ _botties_ are programmed to switch to attack mode if they sense a rise in your ki. So be a good boy, 'kay?" Her frivolous ways are back and with them her unnerving winks and mocking smiles. 

He's not going to let her have it any further, therefore he turns his face away, intentioned to ignore the woman until she's over with her task.

"Sulking much? Are you a kid? Anyway, now the bot will attach those friendly wires to your battlesuit. If you had been nicer to me, I'd have told you sooner. Did you feel any shift in your power while you were charging up before?"

"I did" he replies, point-blank, starting to veer his attention toward her again, slowly. Warily. "Is it your doing?"

She doesn't seem surprised to have piqued his interest. When the woman reappears in his field of vision, she is holding a beverage in her hands and blowing on the steam it produces. "Yup. As I said, you would know already if you weren't such an ass on the Earth. Those battlesuits, let's say, 'recycle' your power and inject it back into your body through electrostimulation. That is basically why you're not fainting." 

Both of them move their attention to the bot that has just finished connecting the wires. "Usually, the process works automatically every time you undergo damage. In this case, exhaustion is merely the result of your stubbornness so I'll have to go an extra step in order to restore your stamina. Are you impressed yet?" She smirks again, knowingly, and he clicks his tongue, furrowing eyebrows. 

Acknowledging her out loud is out of the question, but he cannot deny that this kind of technology surpasses every military equipment he's encountered since Frieza's. It'll surely boost both endurance and strength. "Don't flatter yourself, woman. Your naivety will cost you your life, sooner or later." That is a fact. Survival is guaranteed only by relying on mercilessness. Helping others at the cost of your life is ludicrous. "You and Kakarot seem to be cut from a similar cloth. It makes me nauseous." 

"You can't swallow the fact he let you live? Your other option didn't look that rosy to me." 

His face whirls in her direction completely and abruptly, eyes wide and filled with bitterness, stare at the hologram as if ready to blow it up at any moment. "_You don't know anything, earthling_. _ Do not dare _ assume you can afford this kind of confidence just because we have a temporary deal. Once I'm done here, you, Kakarot, and that pitiful bunch of weaklings are all going to die by my hand. Do not forget where you stand. Nor where _ I _stand." 

She stares at him, silent, and seems to match the intensity of his challenge. But there's no sign of being intimidated in her stance. Why? Why is this miserable creature defying him so? Just about a few days ago she was shivering in front of him. 

"First of all" she stands up and slams her mug on a flat surface, and her sudden, violent reaction takes him aback. "You're currently _ not _ standing anywhere. As you can feel, you're lying face down on my damn floor. Mine. Not yours. Second, do you mean we're leagues apart? Because I completely agree with you. But from my standpoint, you're the one in trouble. Not me. Confidence? I'm stating _ facts_, Vegeta. Now don't go around telling me you'd rather die by the hand of Krillin than being where you are now. You have been lucky. No. Lucky is an _ understatement_!" She's not yelling, but it feels as if she were doing that. He feels his lower lip slowly detaching from the other, gradually falling agape.

"Extremely lucky that Son was there at that time. I know. I know! It must sting your pride a lot. But despite that, you're still trying to figure out how to get back at him, right? Is being alive such a dire condition that you have to whine about it every second? Death must be _ horrible_. It's horrible and I don't want to die. So, instead of behaving like a miserable wreck and promising empty threats just practice what you preach! Get stronger. Become a Super Saiyan. Remind your fucking self where you truly stand. Because between me and you, you look the only one that doesn't know his place!" She's breathing hard now and looking at him with eyes brimming with expectation. As if she's really meaning what she just said. 

And in a way, those words hit him hard, deep. He doesn't understand. Why… why would she give a damn about what he wants? And on top of everything: how does she know? "It's not your business" he finds himself replying. His mind in shambles, fully overwhelmed by the unexpected force of her speech. "We are enemies." It's a whisper. "That's all you need to remember. Now, leave me alone."


	9. The Game of the Tears

She's been sitting in front of the black screen for hours, head in her hands, wide-eyed. How… How is this possible? That question has been rolling around in her head like a crazed psycho… and for the very first time in her life, _ she _ doesn’t have a reply. 

The only image staring back at the scientist, is the ghostly face of someone who hasn't slept for days, seasoned with awful eye bags, and chewed up lips. 

Fingers dig in between her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose, whilst she tries to recap the situation without going nuts. 

Two days ago, maybe a little disheartened, she granted Vegeta's request and left him alone for a few hours. When she came back, after a hot bath, this is what she found. 

The system completely shut down.

Rebooting, health checking, messing with the bios and even dismantling the whole program and rewriting it from scratch had led to nothing. _The issue was external_. Her mind had already ran over every possible scenario, from silly to apocalyptic. Did she make some mistake in rerouting the spaceship? What if she didn't manage to set the right coordinates? Was it the attraction field of the black hole? No. It was too far away. There's no way it could have happened so fast, right? When she last checked, the ship was out of range. _But... maybe my calculations were wrong?_ _They're never wrong!_

"Oh God…" she cards her fingers in her hair, slowly, crouching on the seat until the tips of her elbows find the hard surface of the control panel. 

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod." No. No, it can't be. He must have landed by now. Maybe, it was just Vegeta… that… yes, that knucklehead must have tampered with the wires, like… like destroying stuff as he does. He didn't want to talk anymore after all. Ahah, yeah, he's someone who'd rather self-sabotage than depend on her. That must be it.

She tries to laugh it off, but the neurotic snigger that escapes her lips sounds creepy even to her. 

"Ok, Bulma. Calm the hell down, gurl. There's no game over until I've squeezed this brain dry." Nobody is dead _ yet _, and there's no reason to think otherwise. How was that yoga thing? Fill your chest to the brim with air and breathe it out as if you had to blow a balloon. And again, and again. 

It's so stupid what she's doing. Crossing her legs on the chair and really trying out something that has never worked and will never work for her. She wishes she were Piccolo. That green dude could meditate even in the midst of a nuclear war without batting an eye. 

"Ugh! What am I doing?!" She uncrosses her legs and gets on her feet, starting to unplug all the wires from her laptop. She needs to transfer the collected data to a more powerful computer and, from there, she may be able to at least retrieve some cyber leftovers from the ship.

Haphazardly, random papers and blueprints end up in her lab coat pockets together with cables and various flash drives, whilst she runs outside, heart beating wildly in her chest and…

"Ouch!" 

The next thing she knows is that her bum is on the floor and hurts, while her nose feels like it just crashed into a wall. 

"Oof, sorry. You okay, Bulma?" Yamcha asks, standing in front of her, apparently just back from a training session since a towel is hanging from his naked shoulders. He reaches out, lending a hand.

"Uh? I…" she touches her head, not really understanding what has just happened. This weird feeling of being wrapped up in a giant bubble, where sounds and sensations travel too fast for her to stop and focus on something else, is eating her away. "Yes." She tucks a riotous tuft behind her ear, "Yes, I am... fine." Instead of grabbing Yamcha's hand, she flips on her knees, frantically collecting scattered things from the ground to stuff them in her pockets again. Forgetting the laptop on the ground.

The man in front of her gets down on his knees as well, but puts both his hands on her shoulders. She yelps at the action, suddenly meeting his confused eyes.

"Hey hey hey, what's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something." Yamcha cocks an eyebrow. She just stares at him a couple of seconds, before shrugging him away and standing up.

"No. No, I'm fine. I'm… I’m just busy and must go." Yes. She must go. There's no time for this. She must get in touch with Vegeta and make sure he's still alive. She has never failed. She can't fail. 

But the grip her boyfriend has on her shoulders is too solid for her to break loose.

"No. You're not going anywhere until you explain to me what's wrong with you. You're shaking." He presses on, as the worry in his voice turns sharper. 

"It's just a caffeine overdose. You know how my all-nighters work, yeah? Ordinary administration. Listen, I really am in a hurry. So let go."

"Right. But usually, you're not ghosting around _ in your house_. This is the first time, since I moved in, that I've seen you,_ and that was three days ag-" _

"Ok sorry. I…" both her hands push against his torso, patting it, whilst her teeth chew on her upper lip, "will make it up to you somehow. But not now." She cuts him off fast and finally manages to get out from his handlock with a final push, hurrying fast across the hallway. 

"You know I wouldn't get in your way if it was _ just _ your work."

Yamcha's words ring so hard in her head that her pace slows down without her realizing it. Until she stops and swirls in his direction. "Wait, what?" 

Yamcha's face is turned away and his Addam's apple bobs twice as he swallows. "You're evidently scared. I can feel your ki, you know? But it's not really necessary since it's pretty much clear anyway. It's him? Did he say or… _ do _ something that scared you?" 

"What? No! He didn't… are you referring to Vegeta? He's not even here!"

"That's the problem." 

Her lips part slightly, she's at a loss of words. 

"Bulma," he walks close again, but this time doesn't dare touch or stop her. His hand starts to raise but he closes his hand in a fist along his hip, instead. "I'm… I'm just worried. You've been bunkered up in that room for too long for your own good, and as much as I'm _ trying _ to understand why you are so invested in this 'mission' of yours, I don't like it. I don't like _ him. _I don't like that you've become so skittish and secretive and so tensed up- so… if he's threatening you…"

"Stop right there." It's her hand that raises in front of her, "we're not going back on this topic _ again _ . Because it's about _ you, _not me." 

"What are you-"

"Threatening me or threatening _ you _?" This time she won't let him use her as an excuse for his power feuds. "It's because I'm not helping you? Are you jealous because you're not the one with a gravity room? That you're not the one on that spaceship? You could have asked that, you-"

"That's not it and you know that! It's… since that day. You've become so super awkward around me. That day… when you came to my _ hideout… _ you left wearing that exact spooked face."

Oh no. No. Not this. Not now. Her sight is swimming, or maybe it's the room that has started moving at an infernal pace and she can't keep up. Why would he bring this up now, of all the moments? Does he say he's worried for her and brings up the _ one _ thing that really terrifies her to the bone? When she's already scared shitless? Seriously?

"No." She takes a step back, and another, "I'm not going to talk about this with you _ now _ . I… really have no time for this, Yamcha." Her hand moves slowly, in a calming gesture, "I _ don't _want to have time for this." 

"Bulma."

"No. Nonononono. Not like this. Please, _ not like this, _ Yamcha." Her voice trembles. It's fear, true fear that's enveloping her tongue and knotting her chest. 

Comfort.

Control.

Certainty.

All those words are slipping from her grasp. She's not ready to let go of all of that so suddenly. Not at this very moment. Not ever. 

"See? Do you see how you're behaving? You're spooked. Bulma, please, tell me what's wrong." 

"Oh my God. Oh God… Yamcha no. Don't do this. Don't do this now."

"Ok. Okay, you know?" Now he's close again, too close. With a small smile, he takes her hand, cupping it within his bigger ones. "It's... fine. I don't even want to know anymore. I don't need to know. Whatever you're going to do we'll work on it, okay? Just, don't shut me out."

"We... can't."

"Wait… what…"

"I can't keep you in. This is wrong. So wrong in too many ways and really, really too hard for me to deal with. It's just a fantasy, a big lie probably I just dreamed about but it's growing every day, so fast…" once again, she tries to slip away from his hands, from the warmness of this all. Because probably... probably Tights was right. It's all about those red and blue pills. The red one is just beyond that door and it's everything she can think about. It's so heartbreaking to look into Yamcha's confused eyes and not know what to tell him. She has no words of comfort, no rational comeback to offer. At this moment, her mind is focused on one thing. And that thing has nothing to do with men or babies or Gods. And Yamcha must know. He has the right to know.

"Bulma… you're scaring me." He chances a larger smile, but it's an uncomfortable one. She feels his hands tightening around hers, they're sweaty and trembling. Or maybe he's not the one shivering like this, it's just her. 

"You…" she takes a long, shaky breath, welled up with a cluster of emotions she cannot identify. Then, she looks straight in his eyes. The sudden change in Yamcha's expression tells her he knows. All the anxiety is suddenly gone, and his eyebrows knit slightly more at the center of his forehead as if he's going to cry. 

"You have Puar and Krillin and Tien and Son, you'll still have me, anytime. He… has nobody on his side."

"You… Do you have feelings for _ that _ Saiyan?"

"No. This isn't about _ feelings_, Yam. Do we even have time for that now? I mean, according to prognostics we could all be dead in three years. And a moment of instant gratification wouldn't be worth quitting what I have already. It's different. I want to fight. But I can't fight knowing that I'd be lying to you. So, please, listen." Now is her turn to take his hands, she puts her free one on top of his, squeezing hard. "That boy, the one that came from the future. I suspect he might be my son."

Yamcha flinches, but his reaction is weaker than she'd expected it to be. His face crumpled in a strange kind of sadness as if this isn't news. As if he knew.

"And… even if this is just a crazy idea, I need to follow my instincts. But, doing so means…"

"That you're leaving me behind." Now his gaze drops downcast, and that smile turns bitter.

"No. No, please don't say that. You know that's not true." Her hands leave his, raising to cup his face, and force him to look at her. "I'm not going to leave you behind." She spells it out slowly, word after word. "I'm being egoistic. Simply that. I just want to satisfy my stupid curiosity and I know me well, I know that if I don't do this I'll regret it all my life… or… what remains of it."

Yamcha steps back, recoiling from her touch, he walks in a circle and then runs both his hands in his hair. "Shoot. This… I sorta expected this but not… like this? Wow, it doesn't make sense. I mean what I'm saying."

"And… and what is it that do you mean?"

"I mean that… I saw what you saw. But I didn't want to believe it. I… just hoped I had just taken the wrong end of the stick, then Goku came and told you about the baby and I came out with that cheesy line because I truly, truly wanted to believe he was just being not Goku for once. But you know, all that looking back at you and Vegeta and all that… keeping stuff secret. He comes from the future in a time machine? Come on. Who's the only one who could pull off a time machine among us if not you? Also, that boy is a Saiyan. Either you'd fuck Goku or Vegeta. That's no Yamcha in between… so I… from the moment you dropped by that day…" he says all of that like the usual him, as he'd talk off a lost game. With a smile on his face, but eyes brimming with frustrated tears he won't shed. 

And she's there, wide-eyed and wonderstruck, heart racing and aching for Yamcha because discovering he knew everything all along, harboring the same suspect in his torn mind, is the last thing she would have ever imagined… and wanted.

"And you know? Who am I to fight off all of this? Can I? Even if I asked you to think it back, to not believe it, to choose me. Would you do that? Surely, oh, surely it's your loss! Because every woman in this _ goddamn city _wants a piece of great Yamcha. This… ahah, this means I will just have more chunks of me to give for free." 

All she can do is stare at him, listen to what he has to say, force herself to give the impression she's not noticing his struggle to keep it cool. 

"Don't look at me like that. It's ok. It's… look, I'm fine. I'll be super fine. In the end, how long has it been? Ten? Eleven years? That's so long. Too long. And I…I didn't even want to get married, so it's cool if you just… do whatever you… oh God, this is so uncool!" He sniffles, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, but doesn't budge. "We're not children so, if it's what you want, do whatever you have to do? I mean… it's crystal clear that you're worried for him. I know because you have that face when you're worried about me. Oh shit, this is becoming so embarrassing and probably I should just get off this steam somewhere? Or I'll end up hugging your legs and beg you not to do this to my pride. See? You're right. It's all about me. I'm too self-centered to give a damn…" 

"Yamcha." Her voice is small.

"About others and…"

"Yamcha!" 

"No! Don't '_ Yamcha' _ me! Do _ you _ even know what you're getting into?"

"No." She admits, lowering her gaze. "Honestly, I don't have the slightest idea." 

"Oh! That's great! That's just so… so…" he hangs his head, shaking it. "So _ you… _ So... _ us _ at the beginning. And I hate that you're just going to upgrade to intergalactic thieves. The fact he's got a little bit more fame than me doesn't mean he's better, you know?" 

"Aren't you silly? I told you, it's not about that. I don't even know what it's about, honestly."

"That doesn't make me feel better. But I guess there's really nothing I can do about that. You're a pretty stubborn woman. Just know this: If this… whole 'affair' blows up in your face, it will be just your problem. I… I won't be the backup-ex-slash-confidante."

"And I don't want you to be."

"Good. Guess… I need to go and kick some shit now because I'm mad. Can I still use your place for a couple of days? Just, you know," he hooks a finger toward the gravity chamber at the end of the corridor, "I want to piss on the walls to get back at him."

"That's broken. So currently a 'no trespassing' zone. But you can piss in the garden if you want. I can disclose his favorite spot to you."

"I'd like to hate you, you know?"

"You can. Just a bit, though." 

They exchange a long, silent glance, in which she rubs her arms and he quietly studies her. The intensity of his gaze on her feels painful each passing second. It's as if none of them has the courage to say…

"See you, I guess," Yamcha drops the bomb, almost whispering it and not quite moving from his spot yet. She wouldn't want to look down, at his clenched up fists, at how much they're shaking. It looks like he's putting so much effort, as usual, to look casual and disinterested. She won't hurt his pride any further. 

"Yes." She gives him a small smile, realizing all her previous frenzy is gone; replaced by hollow resignation. And as his back turns, she does the same, listening carefully to the tapping sound of their parting. 

And then, it's all gone. Her human blanket, her passepartout for a quiet and unbothered life… all sacrificed for the sake of a will-o'-the-wisp that maybe exists just in her head. What if… _ this _ future and _ that _ future aren't the same? Maybe, if she doesn't have the baby the androids won't come… it's the butterfly effect, after all. 

_ Do you even know what you're getting into? _

No. And not knowing is _ fine._ Is exciting. Is… _ her_. Just as Yamcha said. And she wants the messy, the unexpected, the adventure. Because _ she wants to know _through trials and mishaps, like a fucking normal human being. Like a scientist. Like a woman. 

Bad or good doesn't matter. She won't walk in that room because someone or something has decided things for her, but because she's the one choosing it.

She'll be the hero, and not a sidekick anymore. 

With or without Vegeta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank (not in order) Ni21, Rogue_1102, Areo_ian and Ruthlesscupcake for dropping suggestions and betaing the chapter. I don't know how could I manage to write without you guys constantly having my back. Love you so much!


	10. The Swordless Conqueror

Recently, she's been having this recurring dream that makes no sense. Where the city is gone, demolished and shattered to pieces; two ominous creatures walk toward her and she can tell by their sharp, bloodthirsty gaze that they're there to hunt her down. She's just not the one running away. No… she's not running at all, it’s like she is paralyzed. Paralyzed within a body that's not her own. Suddenly, she's screaming under a rain that feels never-ending, in her arms lies the lifeless body of a stranger. Her chest hurts, there's so much pain in there, that her lungs can't catch enough air. Air that's stifling and charged with power. It's a strange sensation that splits her reminiscences into known and unknown. She shouldn't be able to _ feel the _power. But she does, and it's such a familiar sensation. Like the pain that builds up in her throat and strikes her cheeks with angry tears. All she can think about is that… this isn't fair. That there's not enough strength in her body, that… if only she were stronger, if only she didn't insist. But… insist on what? Who's she crying for? What is it, that devastating emotion slicing through her heart like a blade? And why is it that she feels so furious? Out of control and mind? All she can feel now is the tumultuous crescendo of energy in her veins, and how it surges in rapid waves, filling her up to the brim and making her strong. Strong as she's never been and…

Something crashes on the floor and her head shoots up from the table, eyes open wide. The piece of paper stuck on her cheek falls on her lap as she turns her gaze to the shards on the floor, remains of the coffee she had an hour ago. Her hands are shaking. How long has she been sitting in front of that laptop, secluded in her lab? Two? Three? Four days? Almost a week of useless attempts at finding a new connection, the system rebooted just fine, however, neither the holowatch nor the laptop could or can reach Vegeta. She's never felt this powerless in her life. 

The last vestiges of that nightmare still cling to her memories, reminding her what true power feels. Albeit she has _ no idea _of what kind of power that was. Perhaps, she shouldn't stay here and find a way to reach him physically instead. A spaceship. If she… if she builds a new one maybe. But how long would that take? Even if she were to work with her father night and day for a week, it wouldn't be enough. But she has to go. She feels responsible for this. It's not just a feeling, it's the right thing to do and…

"Honey." 

The sudden hand on her shoulder makes her jump on the chair, swinging backward on it, her hands shoot up in front of her face in a defensive stance she didn't know she possessed.

In front of her, her father blinks twice and the cigarette hanging from his parted lips almost falls off. 

She stares at him a couple of seconds, then, at the awkward position of her hands, that so much resembles the one Son falls in before a fight. Slowly, limbs drop heavily on her lap, and she sighs. "Papa, can't you knock on doors anymore?"

"_Papa_?" He chuckles, "you haven't called me that in ages."

The fact her face feels hot all of a sudden signals she hasn't had enough sleep. Calling him papa? Seriously? That's so embarrassing. Even for her. "Sour mood here. Can't you tell?" 

"Oh, I totally can. Just dropped by to check on you, your sweet mama is worried so I thought I'd leave Scratch here for a while." He rubs the cat's fluffy chin and the tiny furball purrs back at him.

"I'm fine. Wouldn't suggest leaving the cat here though, if you don't want it to be turned into an anti-stress ball. And with that, I mean I'd be squishing his head in my fingers." She throws a glance at the black feline, the animal tilts its head and meows. 

"Oh but that wouldn't be an issue, this little robofluff is pretty sturdy." 

"That's not… that's- not the point dad! Point is, I can't afford distractions right now… you and the cat are one."

The old man and the mechanical feline exchange a glance and then they're back looking at her. "Do you want me to help-"

"D-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n."

"You were always good at spelling contests." 

"Dad…"

"Alright, alright. But I wanted to let you know that the Gravity Chamber is functional again. I ran over some tests and you did a great job, my girl."

"Duh." She sighs, running a hand in her hair, "Oh my God. Who's this insufferable wench? Sorry. Fitful sleep. Really… Thank you for checking and everything. I mean… on me and on the G.R." 

The man in front of her gives her a warm smile, or an enigmatic one… she's always has a hard time deciphering him. 

"You're so much better than me at this, so I really have nothing left to teach you but… Sometimes, tech is tricky. People spend too much time looking into details and fail to figure out the big picture." 

She was already on the papers scattered on the desk by the time she speaks, "oh yeah? Well, looks like I'm having a hard time figuring both. I know something happened to the spaceship, must be damaged or something otherwise I wouldn't have had problems configuring a new connection. Look here," moving the drawings she's made, the scientist taps a few times on a circled area. "This is where the problem resides."

The man leans in, "Engine?" 

"Yeah. Isn't it weird? This shouldn't have happened unless…" blue eyes wander in the room, stopping brusquely when they reach his father's smiling face. "I swear to… I'm going to staple your mouth shut! I can't believe you managed to talk me into telling you!"

"That's the magic of parenthood, baby Bul. Now, I know you'd rather work on this alone but, asking for help once in a while doesn't make you less of a genius."

For some reason, his words stick and cling to her thoughts… making her think about Vegeta. "He…" her forehead had already started to crumple at her father's suggestion, but now..._ now, _ realizing that… "he really doesn't want mine." It's a whisper, heated, that draws up the lingering storm of her dream in her belly. It makes her guts crawl. It makes her so _ damn _ furious! "He _ has _ sabotaged the ship." 

With a single swipe her hand clears up the table from useless paraphernalia, her father jumps back and the fake cat on his shoulder hisses at her sudden motion. "I actually might need your help." 

When her gaze raises to the other scientist, she feels fire in it. Fire rippling in her body like a prepotent tide. "I created a device that connects to Vegeta's battlesuits. Now, if he's really going awol on a planet full of enemies," she's on her computer as fast as her father's keen eyes follow her, tapping open a few windows that show the skeleton of the gear she invented. "He'd be clever enough not to mayem the recycling actuators. Do you see this cluster of sensors here? Next to the chest? It pretty much works as a heart, which means every single conductive thread passes here. Even those next to his wrist, where I installed the nano version of my holowatch." The muscles around her mouth, she feels them finally starting to throb up into a victorious smile after days of useless self-loathing.

"So you need to create a new port for that to…"

"GPS the shit out that Saiyan." 

They exchange a glance, and she feels her father's eyes smile at her. 

_ You won't underestimate me again. I'm going to show you that you indeed need my help, Vegeta. _

\---

A vernal wisp of wind laps at the back of his nape, some rock under his boot crumbles as he advances over the top of the cliff. He had imagined the place many times, dreaming of crushing every patch of land with the same disturbing amusement Frieza got rid of Vegetasei. However, there's _ nothing _ here worth destroying. 

Under him slithers an infinite desert, whose landscape hardly differs from one of the thousand inhabited planetoids he used to exploit for training purposes. Judging from a first glance, this place seems completely devoid of resources that'd allow life. 

_ If _ he was one to trust _ a glance, _ that's what he'd think. Light is almost non-existent; the barest hint of that comes from the close satellite rising at his back, a satellite _ of the likes of a moon_. His gaze moves over his shoulder, framing the burning dim ring stretching its piteous glare on the starless sky. Knowing that sick bastard, the chance this might be nothing but a large Saiyan's trap is not unlikely.

It's no surprise to him that Frieza would set up such a pathetic stage, just to underline where he stood on the food chain. And it's no surprise either, that he was expecting the last remnants of a race he loathed so much to revolt. Push them to turn into Oozaru, perversely awaiting for them to release their full power to then reduce this lackluster patch of grime into dust immediately after. 

He can feel it, the inside of his fists gathering power, power that's boiling under skin, shielded just by the tethering layer of self-preservation. Fragments of rocks start to splinter under the discharge of energy he's directing to the ground, that shakes, raising rumbling echoes all around. 

He fell for it. He fell for it. He fell for it again. Years…it's been a decade of plotting revenge against the Colds' phantasmal homeland. This is what all of that was for? For falling into another trap? 

He didn't learn. He didn't learn anything. All of his progress, steps, everything was for _ naught_. 

For naught!

Turning around, the flat of his hand opens toward the satellite. Flicks of electricity dance around his hand, filling it, feeding the anger, the shame, the sense of loss and defeat; concentrating all of it on one target. 

A target that unexpectedly blurs away from his focus, which veers toward the missing patch of cloth on his arm, that he burned off right after landing. 

Even after getting rid of every possible connection with that woman, her voice, _ her words, _still ring in his head like an insufferable litany.

_ "So, instead of behaving like a miserable wreck and promising empty threats just practice what you preach! Get stronger. Become a Super Saiyan. Remind your fucking self where you truly stand!" _

His resolve wavers and tensed fingers still frazzling with power slowly curl back in his gloveless palm. 

"I don't need to be reminded," turning away sharply, he spits on the ground. "I already know where I stand." Born to be at the top, born to bend the universe at his will. _ That _ is where he stands… where he's _ supposed _ to be. _ Then why_… 

With a jump he's off the cliff, taking off in the sky.

Why can't he stop the ebb and flow of those words in his head? It's been so long. _ So long_, since someone _ pretended _ to expect something _ more _ of himself. To meet a standard, to set the bar higher. And he doesn't like that. Cannot bear being told _ what to do _. He lived all his goddamn life like that, under his father, under Frieza. And now, now the most insignificant insect has the guts to order him around? 

And that incenses him, the idea that even after tampering with that fucking spaceship and burning to ashes her resources, her words are still besmirching his thoughts. 

Therefore, he'll get rid of superfluous musings. 

The thickness of the night encroaches the limitless expanse of sand underneath; making it hard to spot blind areas where Frieza's army might have ensconced a force base. There must be one, probably underground, inasmuch as this planet somehow still produces oxygen…

As focused as he is on trying to find a clue, his senses almost miss the buzzing sound that now freezes his expedition midsky. First scoping around and then recognizing the crackling comes from himself, he swifts up his right arm, and his tensed features go slack with surprise. The scorched part of the battlesuit on his arm it's growing back, like actual skin. And if it wasn't for the sound, he probably wouldn't have noticed. It doesn't tingle or minimally impacts on his nervous system. 

"Are you impressed yet?" 

The noise comes out before the quadrangle of light that follows. With a sharp jab he tries to shut it, it's an automatic reflex.

"You can't swat away a hologram," the sigh that leaves her lips sounds more relieved than exasperated and he doesn't understand why. But it doesn't matter. She shouldn't be there, meddling again. And something about his thoughts must have transpired from his expression, because when her eyes open again are filled with acrimony. 

A kind of gaze he's used to, who has seen on countless faces before her's.

But then, her cheeks fill up with air and she breathes all out in one go. "**Are you out of your goddamn mind?!**"

It's obscure to him what makes him flinch about that, the sheer force of that human voice feels like an atomic wave pushing him back. 

He's befuddled.

"We had a **deal!**" Her timbre is abrasive, she's so worked up that doesn't even pause to take a breath "it doesn't work like this! You can't suddenly turn the tables as you please just because you feel like doing that. It took me hours to figure out what you did to-" 

"Deals imply that both parties involved have something to gain. As you _ can see_, there is nothing to gain here for _ neither of us_," he scoffs, upper lip twitching in distaste. 

"How do you know?" That query sounds exactly as a grating flick on the forehead, that makes every single muscle go tense and sets his jaw. "I take that you're moping because you can just locate vital energy with your power."

"Moping?!" His affronted quip doesn't seem to quell his interlocutor shut. On the contrary, she opens her mouth again.

"Yes. _ Moping_." And she dares mark that past word too. But then, as lunatic as she is, all her sing-song front drops again. She looks at him, through that screen, with a look he's not able to decipher. "Look, Vegeta... I know." 

It's a whisper.

A whisper that induces him to drop on guard, and raise all his defences at once. "You don't know anything. Don't make me repeat myself."

"No. No! I didn't mean… what I want to say it's-"

"I don't care."

His hand is ready to rip off the sleeve of the battlesuit again, fingers tighten around the hem.

"I know how it feels when people think you are hopeless!" 

Her words freeze his action. And for a fraction, something seethes into him, sending a flare of shame up in his belly. His wide eyes stare at that wrist as if it was the source of all his madness. 

"And we are. Alone. When we're alone… we are as hopeless as a newborn baby. And it makes me mad. So mad! Because in the story of my life, I somehow always end up being the damsel in distress and I hate that. I hate that so much! And it costs me a lot to admit that I need help. _ Your _ help. I'm weak. You're strong. And I need your strength as much as you need my brain at this precise moment."

At some point, his attention must have returned to her unconsciously. Because now he feels like he is staring, staring at her through eyes squeezed into thin slits. Because her words resound into his chest like truth he'll deny until his last breath. But still true, nonetheless.

She's looking at him with the same intensity, an intensity that slackens his grip on the cloth. 

The color in her eyes is as deep as the vacuum of universe, and something in that gaze is telling him she's swallowing every ounce of pride when she says,

"Help me. Help me so I can help you."

He bares his teeth and for a moment his gaze wanders in every possible way that's not in the direction of that screen. 

Saiyans don't need help.

Saiyans are selfish, proud warriors that fight in the name of one and one alone. 

He cannot stoop so low.

He cannot allow this woman to play with his thoughts. To confuse him so. 

"I'll say this just once so prick up your ears." He talks through his teeth, and points his gaze elsewhere whilst slowly descending on the ground. "You're not helping me. I'm just allowing you to _ offer your services _ to me."

"Likewise." He doesn't see her, but her bold way of speaking is back, and with it all the loathsome confidence. "Now, would you pick up some of that sand so I can analyze it? I've got a bad feeling about it..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Ruthlesscupcake and Ni21 for helping me with the chapter ❤️


	11. Traces in the fog

It's late at night for her, she knows that because the natural light has stopped filtering through the low east windows. In spite of the overall weakness of her body, her brain is currently frenzied to the point that sleep has become optional. Once again, as she'd been doing for the most part of her life, she's prone on her desk, focused on numbers and strings of codes traveling fast on the screen of her computer. 

For the past thirty minutes, she and Vegeta have been coexisting in silence, light years apart, and for the first time in months… truly cooperating. He settled down on the ground with his back against a rock and his impenetrable gaze set somewhere she can't see. Waiting. Waiting for the results, she is slowly acquiring through analysis. Awfully quiet and guarded, like he has been for a year and a half since the aftermath of Namek. 

She peeked at him more than once during her computing session. His presence is strong in the room, even if he's not there. And Bulma can't help but wonder when this had begun. When did she start to feel so self-conscious about him? About the awkward pleasantness accompanying this kind of unwanted and wanted camaraderie? 

It's stronger than her, the curiosity that pushes her to steal just another, quick glance in his direction. This time, though, she got caught with her hands deep in the cookie jar. He's looking back, and it's too late to pretend she wasn't staring. So, all she can do is pull a nervous smile on her lips, which he promptly ignores, turning away again. 

His conduct fires her cheeks up, scratching at her womanly pride. No man on Earth has ever resisted her charm. And she's pretty aware that she's got plenty of that in her. Looks like aliens…Saiyans especially have developed a sort of autoimmunity to the opposite sex. Son revealed to be the prime example of that when she tried to coax him into lending her his Dragon Ball by showing him her panties. Are they all sexually frigid? Do their hormones respond just to particular solicitations? Saiyan pheromones? The fact Son has produced an heir, means that his wife has found a way around his hibernated balls?

But more importantly… _ how _ in the hell did she end up thinking about this? 

"I'm almost _ done_," she hisses, not quite understanding what she's so frazzled about. 

Vegeta doesn't offer the minimal reaction to that, it looks like he's set on making it known that he doesn't really give a rat's ass of what she's doing. And she can't even retort, because he didn't ask her to do this, to begin with. Well, _ fine_. It was, and it's her choice. 

However, whatever was on her mind dispels at the typical _ bing _ of the notification that the procedure is complete. As if awash by a tide, her squinted eyes widen at once, and she slaps her palm on her mouth. It feels like insects are crawling under her skin, goosing her neck hair.

"What is it, woman?" 

Vegeta's collected timbre draws her attention, forcing her to show and share her most frightened look. The Saiyan doesn't bat an eye. Instead, he jerks his chin to goad her to give him the response he's expecting.

"Dust." She starts, swallowing hard and blinking to recompose herself. "The program has detected a multitude of mixed elements… among them, the most recurrent pattern shows traces of wood, iron, vitroceramic particles and… bones."

"A purge." He says, not at all discombobulated by what she has just disclosed. Sinking his hand in the dark layer of debris, he takes a handful of it, letting it sift away between his fingers. "Not uncommon. Still odd for this kind of planetoid."

"What do you mean?" She queries, curiosity now taking over where fright had let off. 

Vegeta's black, bottomless irises slowly move slantwise, framing her again. "Can't you tell?" He sounds almost...mocking. 

She rolls her eyes. "Oh no, I can't. Pleaseee enlighten meee, oh valiant Prince of lost causes-"

He sniffs unimpressed, "you could do better."

"I could." She smirks, "but I won't. I like horror stories more. Go on, _ please_?"

"It's pretty simple. The PTO based their trades on three precepts: reachability, resources, and remuneration. For one," he stands up, not even bothering dusting off his battle gear. "To get on this planet, you have to dodge a black hole, which inevitably arises the second issue, sooner or later, whatever lies in this quadrant will end up sucked up therein. The absence of a sun lessens the resources."

"Not worth betting on. Not much of a perimeter, and from the looks of that, those rocks seem friable as bread. But…" her index finger taps on her upper lip, "it makes a good hideaway if you don’t want to be found."

"Wrong." Once again, he's staring far away, as if he's reminiscing on something… or somewhere. "It makes a perfect battlefield."

"So you think that whoever lived here purposely invited Frieza and his gang so they could permanently put them to sleep? No offense to you battle maniacs, but sounds more like a suicide plan to me." 

"Why give out these coordinates…" 

Vegeta doesn't seem to be listening anymore. He's all whispers and mystery and she's dying to scavenge his brain in search of some clue. Argh! Why is she stuck in the goddamn lab while he gets to investigate on the field? 

Oh well, she'll just _ maieutic _ her way into making him spill the beans. "But I thought this was supposed to be Planet Cold…" 

Suddenly, Vegeta's head shoots up from his mulling, and with a jump, he is in the sky, flying at super speed. She can't see a thing because when he does that, everything turns blurry and distorted. "Hey! Don't leave me out. I wanna know what's happening."

"Shut up," he says just that, as _ charming _as just a solid kick in the cunt could be. The blue fluff on her nape spikes up with electric indignation. He's just lucky she cannot retort in his face right now... Otherwise she'd turn it blue with shame.

A moment later, the sound of terrain scrunch under Vegeta's boots lures her to the screen again. It's dark. Darker than before, and she gets up and squeezes her eyes in the hope of catching a glimpse of where they are.

Vegeta's movements are stealthy and guarded, she can tell by the way his arm swings along his hip. Might there be...life? Enemies? Frieza's army? 

Her heart thumps loudly in her ears, chest, marrow. It's excitement mixed with terror, which makes her jump a bit like when she has to pee. She's seen Vegeta in action just twice, up 'till now, when bloodthirst was so palpable around him that she swore it could have been his spiritual pressure. 

Now? If he fights now, will his hair finally turn oddly blond like Son's? Will she finally see him transform into the _ thing _he glorifies? 

_ No. Not today, at least. _ She throws a sidelong glance at the command panel, which doesn't pick up any form of life, in the radius of Vegeta's proximity. 

When the Saiyan finally stops, her teeth clench hard. "Hey! I know that_ verbal communication _isn't a Saiyan skill, but can you at least lift your arm so I can see something else besides your hips? Not that I'm complaining, you've got a fine set of-"

Vegeta rips off his sleeve again. 

And she's forced to hurriedly remove the headset she was wearing on the floor, due to the unbearable screech of nanotech being crushed in his hand.

"That récidive son of a holy moly bitch!" She flings it at the wall, massaging her hurting ears. He did it again! 

Her pained grimace, though, turns up into a sly smirk immediately after. "But this time, I'm at least three steps ahead of you, my dear galaxy overlord." 

\---

How could he have been such an _ imbecile_? 

The hole in the ground a few feet away from him is the result of a particularly angered energy blast. The crater is still swallowing up the remains of metal hanging precariously around the edges. 

Of course, this shitty planet would have an underground base. And closest to where water once ran. The corners of his mouth twitch with disgust, as he hops and descends in the angust hole. 

The rust devouring the pipe system confirms his previous thoughts. Water used to run nearby, therefore, this must have been a habitable planetoid in the past. That would explain the traces of purge. But again, why bother to raze such a pitiable ecosystem? The more he penetrates the lugubrious, abandoned base, the more things don't add up. 

"Do that again, and I'll set the next coordinates straight into that frigging black hole!" 

She's there again, and this time, he doesn't even bother to acknowledge her antics. He does, however, take into account the fact that getting rid of her is not an option anymore. For now.

"The more you ignore me, the more annoying I'll become. You know that, right? So, respond, where are-" 

"Underground base." He cuts her off, hastily.

"Boooo. So boring. I've seen sci-fi movies more original than this. Bet ten thousand zeni that a black alien will pop out of nowhere and gobble you up whole." 

This woman is, in a word, draining. Albeit he is certain she knows that her frivolous chatter doesn't make sense to, nor interests him, she rambles on and on, filling his skull with the wish to blow her to pieces. 

"Look!" The dim stream of green light coming from the holographic contraption lights up a large intersection that corrals in two other funnels. 

"No! Not there! Raise your gaze!"

When he does, every drop of blood in his body freezes up. His body stiffens; it’s a primal reflex, what pushes him to clench his lumbar muscles, that would have curled his tail tightly around his waist if he still had one. 

“Can you…”

“I **cannot**.” He didn’t even need to realize she had posed a question to respond. His wide eyes narrow back into thin slits, and his jaw sets into a hard line. 

"Your reaction tells me a different story… but whatever, let's just go on and search blindly for hints we have right under our nose." There is an evident shrug in her voice, and that irks him. 

He truly doesn't know what possessed him when his mouth opens again, spitting out, "it's probably saiyago." All the muscles around his teeth burn at once, for solely daring to mention that detail to a stranger.

"_Probably_?"

His nostrils flare, and he can feel the nerve of his upper lip start to twitch, but he bites it. Breathing out unnecessary steam. "It's a language that fell in disuse a long time ago. Much like the rudimentary scribbles on that capsule you gave me." 

"Hey! On the Earth, my rudimental scribbles _ make sense_! At least I can… oh, _ oh, oh! _You're telling me this might be that old of a place? That those… Uhm… graffiti-like thingies might be a sort of encoded message? Like 'Saiyans were here' or something?"

"Bullcrap." Whatever that earthling is scheming, he isn't going to listen to her any further. It's enough of a problem that he's stranded in this goddamn piece of nothing whilst Kakarot is getting stronger by the second. Saiyan or not, those incisions are nothing but useless trash. Determined to find what the woman wants and leave this planetoid at once. He just steps further into the darkness of the underground base, leaving the phantoms of his past where they belong.

\---

She doesn't get him, and the more his way of thinking slips away from her understanding, the more it fascinates her. Never before had another creature tickled her genius so much, and much less the whole culture hiding behind the thick wall of stubborn reservedness Vegeta persists on putting between them. 

Perhaps, it's because she has always been used to getting what she wants. Hardly anything ever represented a challenge for her overdeveloped brains, no matter their difficulty or complexity. Since she was a kid, the resolution of whatever problem appeared in front of her eyes even before she started thinking. Notions just came to her, as if they were naturally part of her system. But right now, under her nose, there is someone she cannot decipher. A super armored safe that she cannot open. It excites her. She feels alive like when she met Son for the first time. If not more.

The more he refuses her, the more she wants to get closer. 

"Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta…" 

She started this little litany fifteen minutes ago, imitating Son, the only one that can apparently get under the skin of this shady, unperturbed entity. She used every kind of tone: silly, angry, sexy, sad, scared, even almost choked on his name a couple of times.

But nothing. His resistance to her bullying, she must admit, is _ legendary_. He could become a Super Saiyan if patience was the key to the transformation. 

"Vegeta, _ Vegeta, _ Vegeta, _ Vegeta, _V-e-g-e-t-a tralallala~" it's been thirty minutes, and now she's coquettishly humming that word like a summer hit. And she took the time to pull out some nail varnish and started painting her toes. 

"We're not gonna find any-thing~ because Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta is stubborn~orn~orn~orn~"

She's not even watching the screen anymore, knowing he's just obsessively checking a perimeter her machinery has already probed twice. Just because he's stubborn.

"Oh, they came out cute." She wiggles her toes, rolling her chair toward the computer screen. "Watcha think Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta~ Vegeta?"

Suddenly, his fist smashes a wall. The violent waves coming from the hit runs fast through the receiver, just, this time, she fool-proofed her headphones. 

"Oh, did something happen?" She feigns to have not noticed his shaking limb, the only thing she can effectively see from her position.

Nah, he won't tell her that she is the reason behind that little slip-up. In fact, he ignores her again, even though the whole underground compound is basically disintegrating on his head.

She shrugs, and moves to her hand, starting to merrily paint a thumb.

Just when she's done, blowing on her fingers, she casually adds, "so, I know the location of the regeneration tank…"

Vegeta stops. 

She smirks.

"How long?" Oh, she hears it, he's mad. His querying voice is shaking with a homicidal instinct. He's so mad that if she was there, he wouldn't think twice before blowing her head off of her shoulders. And she wouldn't blame him.

"Since the beginning. The very moment I established the new connection." 

"You dare make a fool of _ me… _" 

_ Incoming magnitude 10 earthquake number two_, with a mental sigh, the scientist puts down the nail polish bottle, stands up from her seat, and looks straight at the monitor.

"It's called _ learn_. And stop that, you're going to blow up the planet for nothing."

Her serious, hard timbre cuts over Vegeta's rage, stopping him short from venting his bad mood in the wrong way. 

Baring his teeth is probably the prince's way to demand to know what her words mean. 

And she will gladly enlighten him.

"That's exactly how I felt when you tried to get rid of me. It stings, doesn't it? To be mocked so. I just played around a bit because I'm _ that _ nice. Now you know that I'm not at your service, and you depend on me more than you want to believe."

The raw, unbridled emotion in his eyes twists into a shocked one, his pupils shrink and tremble in the sclera, as if her words hit some secret button. 

"We're not, in any way, tied to grades or royalty in this mission. You're not my king, as I am not your boss. I don't trust you, and you don't trust me. And that's fine with me. But if you think you can play around with me without getting payback, my dear Saiyan, well, you're gravely mistaken."

It's interesting, she thinks while she studies him, how Vegeta can be so devastatingly expressive for one that tries to always hide his emotions. And it hits her, at that moment, that probably she is starting to see beyond what he wants to show. 

And that is… nice. Surprisingly so.

He's cornered, and when he's cornered, either he sputters threats or…

"Tch." 

Does _that_. 

What she didn't expect, though, was his mouth slicing up into an amused, belligerent curve. "For one _ so _ weak... I must admit you can hold your ground."

For some reason, his words make her chest swell with pride and gratification. She winks, giving him her most satisfied smirk. "Oh? And you notice it just now?" 

"However, your earthling friends should have warned you ahead of time that it's hard to fool me."

_ What? _

His hand opens flat on his palm, and that little, confident twist of his lips grows wicked. 

_ No way! _

She jumps from her chair to the second computer on her right, the one that traced the existence of the regen tank.

At the same moment he releases the spherical burst of energy and tears down a wall, her eyes fall on the radar. 

_ No friggin' way! _

"I cannot read the language of my ancestors, but I could perfectly understand the one sentence that has been said to me since the very day I'm born. 

_ Akkala, Yamoji._"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know. I'm late with this update - bows - but I have had a huge lack of inspiration, that fortunately dissipated completely thanks to you guys! I'm already writing the twelve chapter. So you won't have to wait long for that :) thanks for your immense patience!
> 
> And thanks a million to Ruthelesscupcake, as usual, for being a super beta!


	12. The exhumed spark

The dust finally settles down, and through it, faint glimmers of hearty light highlight the speckles of dust dancing in the air. Beyond it, sand walls painted of the brightest crimson make her eyes go wide with wonder. She can barely catch the strokes of black paint forming words and what she assumes might be sentences, like a book written on the rock. Piles of begrimed objects are ordinately stacked on top of each other against the largest wall. She can't really make out what it is, some of them look like weapons, with rusted, dull tips peeking from under raw cloths. Vegeta moves forward, the sound of the tip of his boots kicking the rubble wakes her from her transfixed state. "The regen tank is-"

Vegeta's somber timber cuts in, "empty." 

He walks closer to the old machine, raising his arm just enough to show her. There's a gaping hole at the exact center of the glass. Its fragments hang suspended on the outline of the liquefied hollow as if frozen in time. 

Bulma lets out a disappointed sigh, even though she had expected that much. "At least the structure is in a fairly decent state. Do you have a capsule with you?" 

Vegeta doesn't respond. She cannot see his face from this angle, but it's definitely turned elsewhere. "What's this room anyway?" She ventures, her mind still swirling around the sound of the foreign words Vegeta pronounced just a moment ago. 

"Grave." 

Her eyes go wide, both at the unexpected response and the significance of what the alien just said. "How can you tell?" She knows he doesn't like her prodding, but she can't help it. The more details he unravels, the more she feels drawn to ask. 

"Custom." Vegeta is lapidary, his voice clipped. It's hard to discern if he's trying to dodge the topic or he's just feigning disinterest. 

"If you have the empty capsule with you, you can just throw it against the tank, it will release nanobots ready to demolecularize the machine. It will take a while though." 

"What a useless waste of time…" even if he says so, clicking his tongue, Vegeta fiddles with the inside of his glove, producing one of the hoi-poi capsules. 

_ He kept it. _

And the fact he has it means Vegeta never intended to go back on his word. Not about this, at least. This creature is incredibly complex. What he shows doesn't seem to even scratch the surface of who he is. First he makes you believe he's ready to screw up everything. A moment later, the simplest gesture overthrows his other action. And that is what makes her go nuts. She can't pinpoint him. Ever.

_ He is a vast array of intersecting lines. _

The customary pop of the _ dynocap _ interrupts her train of thought, a thick layer of smoke coruscates the machine, which means the bots are prepping it to be dismantled and successively absorbed in the _ pocket dimension _ideated by her father.

She can't wait to put her hands on that space piece, smother its surface, study its alloy. It doesn't really matter if the healing mixture is dried up. She'll eventually find traces of…

Vegeta's arm is turned at an angle that now allows her to fully take in his profile. His nose is up in the air, his gaze probably focused on one of the walls. Despite his previous succinctness about the whole ordeal, it's clear as the day that he's trying to decipher the language of his forefathers. 

Her mouth curls up into a whimsical curve. "What did you say earlier?"

At her call, his eyes move slantwise, framing her, square. "I fail to see how that could be relevant to you." 

She shrugs, rolling her eyes. "I'm a _ scientist_, there's hardly anything that's _ not _ relevant to me in this universe… what? Don't look at me like that. I mean it."

His crooked, bushy eyebrow flattens on his forehead, and his gaze returns on the wall. "_This way, your majesty._"

"You know?" She starts, rolling away from the screen for a second. "When you first came to the Earth, I stole Raditz's scouter." 

"And I should give a damn because…"

She's scavenging in a drawer when her head whips back, bristling at the faraway screen. "You should because I decoded the PTO _ secret language _ in less than five minutes. Without even having a clue, like I have now."

"Lies." She can almost _ hear _the scornful grimace on his lips. And that just entices her more to do what her mind just suggested her to actuate.

"Believe what you want, but I was capable of reading Son's battle power rising exponentially during your fight against him, too bad it overloaded the system. And it exploded." 

"I don't care. Whether you did it or not, abort whatever insane idea came up in your brain, this instant."

After plugging a particular memory stick to her pc, she's back tapping frantically on the keyboard. "Too late. I'm done. I'm sending the codes through the holowatch, so it will allow you to read the OCR translation in real time. Worry not, I won't snoop."

When she steals a glance at him, a befuddled look is back on his face. She likes that he genuinely lets his surprise show. Maybe he doesn't even notice that. The only other person that does that is Son. And she was always fascinated by the innocence behind that simple change. You won't expect men forged on thousand battlefields to give out simple feelings like that. But probably, she muses, they are how they are, because Son grew up in a reality where the only other living creature he had always known was his grandfather. He was… pure, an innocent being never exposed to the commonalities of the real world. Vegeta, on the contrary, comes from a life where simple emotions probably… didn't have a reason to exist. Open space, among murderous thieves neurotically thirsty for power, greed, she imagined, that simply overrode everything else.

That's probably another reason why she stopped fearing him. 

A small, amused smile threatens to purse her lips. But never blooms. Instead, her mouth parts. The look he's giving her, now, it's unlikely any other she has witnessed. It's intense. It's an unspoken question she can't decipher. Looks confused, but kind of serious and enigmatic, kind of disarray. His eyebrows are knitted at the center of his forehead, but he's not frowning at her. There's no loathe or threat in his eyes. Just… maybe… 

The notification of the program beeps twice on the holowatch, but for a small, split second, it's difficult to tear her gaze away from his. Vegeta is the first to budge and look away. 

Her mouth stays parted. 

He grunts, jerking his chin toward the contraption, and the magic dispels from her fogged mind. "O...oh yeah, that. It… you have to point it at the wall, and it will translate the language in galactic standard right away." She stutters.

_ She… stuttered? _

_ Okay. Don’t panic._ Her heart rate is not _ romantically _ skyrocketing to fairytale land or anything. Which means she's not randomly crushing on him just because he gave her '_the look'. _ But she can't deny that it did surprise her, that Vegeta could make '_the look'. _ After all, '_the look'_, exists just in her sister's fantasy, a term she coined to define the irresistible eyelock that precedes sex.

While her head is piteously wrapped in pindaric flights, she didn't notice that Vegeta had shifted the direction of his arm. Just the faintest brush of words she didn't catch on the microphone cuts off her delayed teenage paranoias. 

When she raises her gaze on him again, Vegeta has morphed into another being. She sees him upfront, and the rage in his eyes is the most terrifying spectacle she has ever seen. It gives her goosebumps. The veins on his forehead are swelling with blood, his bared teeth screech dangerously.

"Vegeta?" 

He says just one thing, _ "fucking bastard" _and then, everything dissolves in static sounds and quakes.

"Vegeta!"

She can just hear the cacophony of an angry wind slapping against her headphones, that makes her stand up abruptly along with all the hairs on her body. What's happening?!

"Vegeta! Can you hear me?" Of course, he can't. And even if he could, he probably wouldn't listen. She has to get back to him. She has the gut wrenching feeling that he's going berserk again. 

Her whole body is blistering with hypertension, from the lack of sleep, the gripping fright eating her innards, and a strange sense of guilt she can't shake off.

She didn't have to mess with that translator. Whatever it is that Vegeta has discovered, it enraged him to no end.

Her mind is running too fast for her body to keep up. She can't even see the keys under the desktop anymore. She must reach him. She can't leave him alone. Not again. 

\---

The centrifugal force around him sparkles and strips cobblestone away from the ground, his mind is blank, filled with negatives of a past he had dusted down in the darkest pits of his soul. It's all resurfacing at once, buffering the muscles in his shoulders with uncontrollable energy. He's being filled to the brim, filled with scorching pain and power. Power he desires, he invites, he embraces. Yet, it's too much. It's bone-breaking and skin-splintering. In his head… in his head there's just the echo of his own wicked scream, and it's like fainting. The feeling of his eyes rolling back into his skull, the unavoidable tension of every limb. 

_ This is for you, o great descendant of Yamoshi. This is for you, bathed in blood and conquest. _

_ This is for you and just you to read, you who repose herein. We lost. We lost. We lost. We lost. We lost. We lost. We lost. We lost. _

_ We lost freedom and will. We lost our women. We lost our prole. We failed to achieve that which our great lord has conquered before us. _

_ We will depart, we are the sole survivors of the land we call Sadala. _

_ This is for you. Who sacrificed everything. This is for you, who shed blood against the Cold Empire for the glory of the Saiyans. _

_ This is a memento. This is a memento of our failure. A memento that shall not be repeated. We will now embark like thieves, we will now embark like the scum of this universe. _

_ We shall reflourish in your name and yours only. And vindicate our people, our race, our beliefs. _

_ In your name, Yamoji. _

The scar that never really healed, that sense of powerlessness, the infinite shame that crippled his mind for all his life is nothing but history that repeated itself. Twice. 

Sadala.

Sadala.

Sadala?

This spit of a planet covered in dust and _ bones_, is this his past? The abode his father and the father before him glorified as the start of their race? The greater populace of the universe was nothing but scum? Wiped by the hand of the Colds again and again and again. The blood in his veins boils and explodes, every thought magnifies to pure and unadulterated craze.

He's the last lord of a race reborn from the ashes of failure just to fail again. Even the tears in his eyes can't leave the edge of pink-white flesh where they dwell. They dry out in the scorching fire that is him, in the nascent, golden flame that envelopes him with maleficent ire. His killing intent has never been so strong, so true, so _ pure. _

He kneeled in front of him.

He kissed the ground where he walked.

He nurtured vengeance for all his life _ for naught. For naught. For naught. _

It's not just Frieza anymore.

It's not just him anymore.

It's in his blood. Contaminated by centuries of slavery concealed as legends. They fed them to him. They fed lies on lies. His race was in fetters from its dawn. Is this the homeland of the most powerful race in the universe?

The planet that saw the first Super Saiyan spawn from the very belly of it’s soil to destroy and conquer?

A fraud.

A fraud.

_ I won't accept it. _ ** _I won't_**_. I will… destroy. I have to…destroy this revolting evidence. _

The fingers of his hand convulse open, stretching out. He doesn't control it. He can't control it. _ Darkness _ swirls at the center of his palm, flickering of _ pure white. The_ tendons in his neck jut out, and it spasms up unnaturally. 

He has to. He has to destroy this revolting evidence.

"Vegeta! Vegeta, wait! Vegeta, listen to me!"

It's a dual voice, that which crawls in his thoughts. He cannot hear it. He won't listen to it. He won't bend to anything and anyone. He's the prince of a superior race.

"Vegeta, stop! You'll die!"

Nonsense. He cannot die. His lineage comes from the Gods, he's the_ Yamoji_. 

"Vegeta! If you don't stop now… if you die here, nobody will know! Nobody will see that you're a Super Saiyan!"

"A Super… Saiyan…?"

"Yes! Yes, you're a Super Saiyan! I can see it. I'm seeing you right now!" 

Her voice now thunders clear in his head. It's not dual. It's just hers. Suddenly, the portentous power engulfing him ceases to exist. He blinks his eyes open, and in front of him there's a wasteland. He's hovering in the sky with his palm protracted, and the last sparkle of energy leaves his fingers, while he slowly lands.

"I am…" his wide, trembling eyes regain focus, lowering down to the holographic screen on his wrist.

"You were!" She's crying and smiling… and shivering.

That woman. 

"I was…"

"_A Super Saiyan_."

They say in unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **Ruthlesscupcake** and **Rogue_1102** for their invaluable help ❤️❤️❤️


	13. The Upcoming Eden

A thick layer of awkwardness has settled between them since then. Her mind feels fuzzy. Fuzzy with exhilaration. It was brief, a speck of gold that lasted a second, that stole the breath from her lungs and filled her body, whole, with pride. She has never experienced the feeling of being _ genuinely _ happy for someone else, even if it meant losing something for herself. The underground base was utterly wiped out by Vegeta's unbridled strength, and with that, the regen tank. 

When she had finally managed to re-establish a connection with the holowatch, the blinding, raw emotion she saw made her eyes fill with tears before understanding what was actually happening. To this moment, she still can't explain _ how _ she knew. But she did. Her body, for some reason obscure to her, recognized the change _ immediately._ It was like she was feeling that power surge within her, too. _ Strange, inexplicable, _ something she would have defined _ scientifically impossible _if her life hadn't been involved with magic since her maiden days. 

_ "Don't tell a soul," _he said, with a voice that didn't belong to him. With trembling fingers and hot-white wires of energy still sparkling around his arms. He hadn't shown his face, keeping the wrist that hosted the holowatch tight-close to his hip. 

And for a second, when that had transpired, she hadn't understood what he meant, not immediately. Only hours after that exchange, and reasoning upon his words, she concluded he meant _ don't tell anyone how this happened. _

She understood that, somehow. That it must have been hard for him to admit he possesses a _ vulnerable _ side. Especially showing that in the face of _ your enemy _. However, is she still one? An enemy? Would a creature like Vegeta tell her to keep it a secret, had circumstances been different? Had she been there, with him, flesh and bones? He would have killed her. She's sure of that. Vegeta isn't Son, and the desperation that she read in his eyes wasn't sadness nor longing. It was madness. It was a thirst for blood and revenge. It scared her. Reminded her that he is not human. That their way of thinking couldn't be farther apart. 

But he still chose to ask her to keep it from others, instead of threatening her life. Oh, certainly he remembers it's useless. That she is capable of standing in front of him and dare him to raise a hand on her. End her life. Or… what?

She stares at the dark screen in front of her. This time, she was the one retreating, without him trying to get rid of the watch. He needs time to process things at his own pace. And she will give him that. She's confident that he won't try to destroy the planet again, not after realizing that its source for the power he's been chasing for so long.

Or… so she hopes. A finger taps on one of the keys of the board under her, uncaring. She can't erase the images in her mind, the sounds, his words, her words. And that ebb and flowing of sensations bring back her worst fear. _ Is the future proceeding as scripted? _ Is she going in the direction fate wanted? Is it truly just _ camaraderie _ what is blooming within her? Curiosity? Attraction? 

_ "You… Do you have feelings for that Saiyan?" _

Yamcha's question rushes back among a thousand others. _ Maybe _. She would respond now. She's not denying it that the past weeks were… intense. And she doesn't want Vegeta to come back now, because she's frightened to confront herself, as it were, with the facts. 

All of her suppositions are slowly inching close to reality. That future _ kid _ is still the proof that somehow, along the way, she stumbled. Or will stumble. Not him. _ Her. _ Because she's the one that would likely fly straight into that net. She's always had a twisted idea of romance. If ending up with Yamcha, of all of the people, indicates her frivolous inclinations. But Vegeta? _ Seriously_? 

She wondered, more than once how it could have happened. Fantasized, even. But the conclusion was always the same: unrealistic. The world could end, his mind is completely clobbered by this insatiable desire to surpass Son. Her mind, on the other hand, is clobbered by wanting to step out of her role as a sidekick. But it was enough to see a little crack on his mask to forget about the regen tank. Hell, to not give a shit anymore! 

She should be angry. Angry at that Saiyan for going berserk and destroying all her efforts, _ their _efforts. But no. She's not angry in the least. Not at him. Just at herself. For being so fickle and easily swayed. 

There's no time for feelings or sex or love, or improbable hook ups with aliens. And what's even the point of having a child if he's destined to die? 

She used to be more optimistic. To believe strongly in Son and her companions. But their decision to fight never sat right with her. This time… this time she's not sure they will win. 

Her lips curl up into a nostalgic smile, "I'm still a scaredy-cat, in the end." And finally, standing up after interminable days, she leaves the lab and turns off the lights. 

\---

She took a long bath. One with bubbles and salts, surrounded by the scent of cinnamon and peppermint. She doesn't even like their sweet smell. But they remind her of the past. Ironically, of the house she used to share sometimes with Son. Of the baths they took together when she believed he was a little kid. Washing his little, bony back, hearing him complain and then ask if her scented shampoo was edible. 

Good memories. That she feels could almost belong to another life. Driving her cars and motorbikes on immense deserts, running for her life, and fighting the Red Ribbon. Falling for Yamcha. Watching all of his and Son's fights at the Tenkaichi Tournament. And then… meeting Piccolo. And understanding that Son Goku was much more than he let on. The arrival of the Saiyans, Namek…

And now.

Thinking back on it, her life has never been devoid of _ thrill _ . Like… seriously, _ ever_. She didn't ask for _ this _ when she started the search for the Dragon Balls. Her _ idea _ of adventure, at that time, was laying on a white tongue of sand one day and maybe meet a cute boy on the road, share ideas and travel, travel endlessly until homesickness would hit. She never imagined that meeting Son would lead _ here._

As she wipes her unruly perm dry, she walks back to her room in her underwear, and a flimsy cut crop top, an unexpected, vivacious whirlwind of twitters coming from downstairs attracts her attention. 

It comes from the inner garden, where her mother is animatedly chattering with someone else. She recognizes the other voice as soon as she sets foot on the grass.

"Tights!" What the hell is she doing here? 

Her kin waves in her direction, and the enigmatic, sphinx-like expression she gives her is the inevitable forewarning that _ she wants _something with her. "Oh, Bulma, finally! I've been waiting forever for you to come out from that stinky lab." They haven't seen each other in centuries, and suddenly she moves to the City just for a social call? 

"The only thing that stinks is your presence in this house." She lets go of the towel to cross her arms under her breasts. Aquamarine brows knit on her forehead.

"Boo. Why do you always think I have ulterior motives? Anyway," she stands up, drawing closer, "I heard that you dumped your eternal boyfriend." 

A sigh escapes Bulma's lips while she gives their mother the stink eye. The second blond snoop of the house barely glances in their direction, and, caught red-handed, goes back to busying herself with her pottery. "Sometimes, I wonder how it's even possible that news spreads faster _ across the ocean _than across a building, in this place."

"If you're going to bad-mouth me, I take it as my cue to leave-"

Oh, fuck!

That embarrassed snort is something she didn't expect to hear so soon again. Her eyes jump straight to his direction. Yamcha is standing there, eyes downcast and hand rubbing nervously at his nape. 

Why on Earth is he still at Capsule Corporation?!

And why with her sister and mother?

Ok, this is awkward on at least one thousand and thirty levels. But they're adults, aren't they? They can definitely deal with a breakup without falling into clichéd slings. "So, this is your training?" She quirks a brow, ignoring the hot wave of embarrassment spreading up from neck to cheeks. They're adults, indeed. But their separation was sudden and odd. And she didn't expect him to actually _ stay_, for so long. "Tea breaks with my mom and sister?"

Yamcha's abashed grin turns upside down and his black eyes finally raise in her direction, evidently irked by her comment. "I was asked to help. What is it? Am I allowed to stay in your house, just not associate with your family?"

"Now, now," Tights steps in between and slings an arm around her neck, which she shakes off. "Let's not start useless quarrels. It's our fault. We kinda caught him training in the garden. We started to ask him uncomfortable questions, until he yielded and told us you guys split up. So mom went ahead and, you know that she lives in drama-"

"You're no different." She shakes her off, suddenly bristling, "well, it looks like I dropped a clanger here. But I'd like you guys to let this matter go. Yamcha knows that I let him stay _ for relevant reasons_." Her gaze is on him again, severe, "Our relationship has nothing to do with it." 

She could read it in his eyes, the exact moment in which her words stung the most. But he closes his eyes, letting out a surrendering exhale. "She's right. I shouldn't have time for this." 

"Aw, dear. Don't say that!" Her mom puts a hand on his shoulder, "everyone deserves a break. And you can blame it on me," she giggles, raising a hand to her cheek, breezy as she's always been. "It made me so sad."

"Since he let you in on our current situation, it's like that. There's no need to pity us or console either Yamcha or me. We're grown ups." Probably she's so tensed up because she didn't sleep a wink because there's the whole Vegeta-turning-Super-Saiyan on her shoulders, and Yamcha in front of her, whose confidence has been thrown in jeopardy since his arrival. How would he react if he knew…?

"I'm sorry," she cards her fingers in her wet hair, "I'm just tired and…"

Tights' hand is on her forehead a moment later "and feverish. Bulma, you're burning up."

\---

This situation is absurd. She ended up being escorted into her room by her ex-boyfriend and her sister, who shouldn't be here. And now they're both standing at the opposite sides of the chamber, Yamcha looking out of the window and Tights forcing her under the covers.

"I_'m fine_." It's the fourth time she says that already, pushing against her unbelievably strong sister. She had no idea she was so sturdy.

"I know," Tights assures, slapping a cold ice pad on her forehead. "But if you don't want your room to be filled with broths and random pies, just to let mom play the nurse, then bear with us for a while."

"Yamcha, you should-" Bulma starts, but Tights cuts over her.

"Wait. I made him come with us because I want to be filled in about the androids." 

Bulma falls back on the mattress. She should have suspected that. No, she totally did. "Didn't Dad tell you everything already? Last time you called me you seemed well informed." 

"Not so much." She folds her legs on top of another, "dad knows what he knows, but you guys-"

"You shouldn't get involved." Yamcha finally turns away from his impromptu sightseeing, "the fewer civilians know, the better will be."

Tights shrug his words off. "Don't go all _ political _ on me, boy. It's not something you can keep hidden anyway, in two… how long was it?"

"Three years." Yamcha intervenes, "and that's exactly why you should stay out of it. We're training to ensure that we can fight them off and protect the Earth when the time comes. Imagine what would happen if this became of public knowledge."

"What happened with the Saiyans, probably. Or Piccolo Daimao, or everything that came before that. Look, I understand what you are trying to say. However, I'm no outsider. Not anymore." 

Now Bulma recognizes her more. She was surprised, last time they spoke over the phone, that Tights had become so coquettish and detached. As if she had wiped away her past. 

She knows that her sister hasn't stayed along with old man Omori all those years just to write her novels. But because she is, at the very bottom, very much like her. Adventure is in her blood.

"I want to help. I could contact Jaco and…"

"No." Bulma lifts off the cold compress from her forehead, throwing it on the sheets. "I suggested a far more easy solution back when we got the news. But it got turned down." She rolls her eyes, "Son and his posse," she marks the last word when her gaze falls on Yamcha, "want to fight, and there's no saying in that."

"Who's Jaco?" Yamcha quirks a brow.

"A guy from the Galactic Patrol we met a long time ago. I wasn't even aware you guys kept in touch after all of these years?"

"Oh, well. Sometimes, I ask him to share some stunts about his work for my novels. But that tiny shit is a cheapskate-" Tights retrieved the cold compress, slapping it again on her damn forehead.

"Wait, wait! Galactic Patrol? What are you guys even talking about?" 

"It's too long to explain, Yamcha. Let's just say they're cosmic cops." Bulma offers, frowning at her sister and tossing the pad across the room this time.

"I'm more confused than ever, but if such a thing exists, why didn't they catch Frieza when he-" 

Bulma cuts in again, "No clue. But I highly doubt a bunch of tiny men with laser guns would have been able to stop what Saiyans couldn't."

At the mention of Goku's native race, Yamcha's shoulders tighten. "Right…" he moves his gaze away, "without _ Saiyans, _ the Earth would be doomed, wouldn't it?"

He’s at it again, but this time she won’t foster his recently developed low-esteem. 

“But Frieza was an alien, aren’t we talking about human technology here?” her sister goes on, ignoring the tension that is evidently building again. And Bulma doesn’t know if to be grateful for the change of subject or slap her for giving more fodder to Yamcha.

In fact, that man is ready to open his mouth again, but this time she’s prepared to block whatever he was about to say from its onset. “Whether it is aliens or not, doesn’t change the fact that they’ll wreak havoc. We haven’t been given much detail, but one thing it’s clear, in the future where that boy comes from… they were strong enough to kill everyone.”

“Even Son Goku?” Tights seems surprised by that revelation, which means dad hasn’t told her that much, after all. “It’s complicated. Son, as told, contracted some heart virus and hasn’t fought at all. For that reason, that mysterious kid traveled back in time to give him a cure.”

“Woah, that could make such a great premise.”

“For the doomsday.” She adds, ironically.

Yamcha has been eyeing her for a while from his corner in the room, she kept him in check in her peripheral vision to evade that he jumped the gun at her mention of the _ kid. _ But he didn’t. In the end they ended things perfectly knowing what was at stake. And she feels bad, for thinking he would end up throwing tantrums now, in front of her sister. He’s much more mature than he lets on, and that makes her angry. Why does he prefer to be seen or thought of as a fool? 

Tights is strangely quiet now, and when Bulma finally tears her gaze away from her ex-boyfriend, she finds the blond kin fixated on her. Their eyes meet and she tilts her head slightly over Yamcha. 

“I think I should go.” 

His sudden rise of voice makes them both jump. He stalks toward the door, stopping in front of it for a few seconds, without turning. “Take care.” That’s all he says, before taking off. And Bulma knows that's not just referred to her current health state. He’s going to leave Capsule Corporation.

\---

The room is silent. Tights hasn’t said a word yet, about what she evidently wants to ask. It was obvious that Yamcha left upon sensing that he was being the third wheel in that conversation, and that must have tampered with her will to ask.

Which also saved her from having to dodge the whole hypothetical side story with Vegeta and the future baby. Instead of satisfying her undying curiosity, she gets up from the bed and tucks her under the covers. “Isn’t a bit late to go all big sisterly on me?” Bulma laughs sarcastically, allowing the blonde to play family.

“I’m actually surprised you’re letting me do this. You were always too prideful to let others take care of you, even as a kid.”

Bulma’s eyes go wide for a second, in which she can’t muster a comeback. She shouldn’t be surprised to hear that, she knows. Actually, it’s not really about what Tights said… more about what flashed in her mind; again. It’s the third time in a few weeks that people tell her the same thing, and every time, she’s reminded that the only person she asked real help from... was Vegeta. 

And she's starting to see why. To see familiar patterns in his behavior, in his way of dealing with things. His personality is a carbon copy of her own, and probably, what she's doing with him is just what she would have liked for her too in the past. Someone that would reach out to her, and open her eyes, and tell her that it's alright to let in a helping hand sometimes. Even if you think that there's nobody else that could do it better than you.

Is she… just projecting? 

\---

He got used to the sulphurous redolence of that planet, to the clusters of violaceous rock climbing up toward its pitch black, eternal night sky. 

Every muscle in his body screams to remember that release, the_ painful _instant that marked his ascension. Yet, it doesn't matter how much he tried to replicate that shameful desperation. It just doesn't come to him. 

He's laying among rubbles, supine and breathless, arms thrown overheard and resting on sheets of metal, remains of his berserk strength. It's been days, maybe weeks, and frustration takes his breath away at every rugged swell of his chest. Broken ribs are healing. The faint light of the spaceship at his back is the only reminder of time. Time he doesn't possess. Time that's running short. His fingers curl inside of the palms, stretching gloves dirtied with his own blood. He cannot think about anything else. Those words are still engraved in his mind.

_ We failed. _

The screech of teeth in his mouth is the only other sound that he hears, joint to that of gravel falling apart when he gets up. The mordant pain of split bones is easily overridden by wicked dismay. In the back of his mind, the image of Kakarot and that boy holding their transformation without breaking a sweat makes his eyes go wide with ire. Why is it that even though he reached his goal, he still cannot bend that power to his will? 

Why is it so? 

_ Why? _

But then, like a wave of madness, the reminiscence of what it feels to have it run through his veins, the savage thrum of unadulterated power flexing his fingers and tendons, creeps back afresh among his thoughts. His mouth splits wickedly, insanely, and his chest rumbles with exhilaration. An exhilaration that breaks into an uncontrollable peal of vicious laughter. He has it. He has it. Somewhere yet to be awakened but he has it. And soon, soon enough the time will come when he'll stand with his foot sunk into Kakarot's empty cranium, and he will get revenge. Revenge for being pitied so by that piece of trash. 

He moves within the spaceship, the tailgate clangs under the weight of his feet. His body, all of it, is tensed up with _ elation _ and _ shame_. 

Shame, he must expel. 

The flickering lights of the rugged station cut on the angle of his chest, arms, legs, as he descends the stairway to the gravity chamber, where obscurity engulfs him again. An open palm slams against one of the aluminum walls; the other hand dives down, reaching for the folds of his battlesuit and yanking the rubber band down. His cock slips out, and he takes his glove in his teeth, ripping it away from his hand. It goes down, gripping at the hard length of his cock, seizing and strangling it tight. Pulling at the flesh with fast, careless strokes. 

Under the skin, his power throbs, mixed with mounting pleasure and cracking pain. His mouth parts, letting out a deep, throaty gurgle. And the more he pumps, the more the fingers against the wall curl inward, twisting the alloy until it bends under the pressure of his strength. The squelching tugs of wet skin fill his ears, and he bares his teeth. Blood pumps fast, at the rhythm of his hand. Desperation. Frustration. Desire to let it out, _ soon. _

Then, her voice breaches into the twisted blindness of his dissatisfaction, and it's shrill and imperative.

He doubles, bending over. Not surprised in the least that _ she _ would be there, in that perverse mesh of corrupt desire. And thinking of her makes him go faster, harder. The torn wall under his fingers splinters further spitting wires in the jagged trails he leaves behind. 

What was her name again? 

_ Bulma_.

He says it. Once. Twice. And his head sinks further between his shoulders. The muscles in his abdomen jump and clench, magnifying the swarm of agony coming from his broken bones and warning that he's close to that goddamn release. 

His hand tugs at his cock, until he comes, hard, spilling the remnants of shame in his palm.

\--- 

She expected Tights to leave Capsule Corporation after a couple of days, but, uncustomarily, she stayed over a whole week. And her presence on one side has allowed her to heal up pretty fast and farther as possible from her mother’s nurse game, but on the other hand, it has totally drained her out.

She spent too much time away from her lab, dodging every possible question regarding _ the red pill _and stuck to having frivolous conversations on sci-fi literature and her sister squeezing out of her, every information about Frieza, the Saiyans, the time machine and whatnot. More than once looking up at the sky, wondering about what else she can come up with, now that her project to recreate the regeneration tank has turned to dust, together with the original prototype. She could try to guess, using the spare data the capsule has managed to send to the computer before the explosion. But it’s not enough. 

“Bulma look,” Tights’ controlled, ever suave voice rips through her calculations, and she frowns at her for that. “What?” They’re currently sitting in the kitchenette of the house and are both consuming a hypercaloric bucket of slimy jello, sharing a spoon. Tights’ eyes are enraptured on the bouncy substance that is… bouncing against the gravity of its metallic dwelling.

No. It’s not that. 

“Can you hear it?” The blond says, swinging her index in the air and throwing a glance outside. “It’s like…”

“_Reactors_.”

She is off her stool in a nanosecond, ignoring Tights’ questions, and suddenly running out in the clearing behind Capsule Corporation. It’s just a tiny dot in the sky yet, but she could recognize the round shape of that spaceship everywhere.

Her body freezes there, in the middle of the expanse of grass. It can’t be, can it? In no way would he be back already, not after tasting the experience of becoming a Super Saiyan… right? 

She cannot help but stare wide-eyed at the clear vault on top of her, mouth hanging open and heart derailing from its spot to crash against her chest in loud thumps. 

“Oh boy,” Tights has reached her in the courtyard, “do I finally get to see the famous red pill?” Her snickering sarcasm doesn’t affect Bulma one bit, on the contrary, it just contributes to flare her raising anxiety.

But that’s it. The spaceship Vegeta borrowed is right in front of her and settles on the ground and the propulsors slowly turn off, bending the grass and whipping blades of wind at her hair. When the porthole hatches open, his silhouette emerges from the shadows. 

And the effect seeing him in flesh and bones has on her calls for trouble. All the hairs on her neck goose up, and it’s not fear.

He’s still covered in dust from head to toe, exactly as she remembers seeing him before shutting down the connection, not more than ten days ago.

His black, penetrant gaze moves downward, locking with hers.

Yes. Definitely _trouble_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Immense thank you to Ruthlesscupcake for betaing this chapter at the speed of light!
> 
> Notes: 
> 
> 1) Jaco and Tights.
> 
> If you haven't read the "Jaco, The Galactic Patrol Man" by Toriyama, do it! It's really nice. It's a side manga about Tights' past. And explains how Tights, Jaco and Bulma met for the first time.
> 
> 2) From the previous chapters: "Yamoshi" is said to be the first Super Saiyan "God" in Dragon Ball Super. I simply tied that notion to the Saiyan History.
> 
> Bonus ;)
> 
>   



End file.
